Friends: What Are They Good For? Absolutely Everything!

Friends: What Are They Good For?  Absolutely Everything!  Even when they are fighting with you.  Even when they are trying to protect you.  Even when that "protection" is making you miserable and it's hurting you.  They call it caring, loving, protecting, and in all that, supposedly supporting.  It does not feel like love, protection, or support.  It feels like the complete opposite.  It feels like I'm being attacked.

I know I couldn't have survived these last couple years without Jeff if it wasn't for my friends (my blog URL has "girlfriends are the new husbands" in it!) but boy are we having a rough time right now.  I need to clarify, that it's not ALL of my friends but just a handful of very close friends.

They are afraid for me.  They think Wyoming has too much "baggage," is manipulating me, and that I got into a relationship with him too fast.

I do know that they love me and what they are doing is out of love but enough is enough.  They may disagree with my decision to get into another relationship, a relationship that is not only long distance but one with a man who has, what they consider "baggage," but this is still my decision and, ultimately, my life.

Living a full life is messy.  Sometimes mistakes are made.  Sometimes people lose loved ones.  Sometimes people are young and dumb or even old and dumb.  Baggage in life is inescapable.  I know that I have a ton of baggage, I'm a widow!  There are all kinds of different types of baggage out there.  And each person's definition and perspective of baggage is different.  Baggage hopefully never drags you down but adds to your life.  It makes things more colorful and also gives you resources to draw from in times of need.  Baggage is only negative when a person allows it to be negative.

But, here's the thing, it's not just about baggage.  I also know what it's like to be loved and to be in a relationship with someone.  I honestly feel safe and secure in my relationship with Wyoming until my friends get involved and make me second guess everything, which is not fair to me or him.  I do not feel like I rushed into anything.  I know what it feels like to truly, madly, deeply love another person.  I also know how to try my very hardest to love with an open heart.

I feel attacked because I feel like they don't have any faith in me.  They say it has more to do with lack of faith in him, but they don't even know him, so the way I see it, it is a lack of faith in me.  I feel like they do not have faith in me to make my own decisions. 

I'm getting a taste of my own medicine though because I know in the past I definitely didn't support them with their decisions in life...especially when I thought I had all the answers and thought my way was the only right way.

I have been officially knocked off my high horse by widowhood.

I guess my whole point is that we all have to walk our own path in life.  Sometimes we gather baggage along the way.  Sometimes that baggage changes us.  It could change us for the better or it could change us for the worse, but that is our path to walk and our baggage to carry.  Sometimes our path and our baggage may cause us to stumble and fall and we need people we trust to help us back up, hand our baggage back to us or even help us to discard it if it's weighing us down, but we still have to make our own decisions and walk that path on our own. 

My path is different than theirs, their path is different than mine.  I just need to feel supported and that they will be there for me when I stumble and fall, even if they disagree with the path I have chosen.

I love my friends.  I need them in my life.  But I also need them to let me walk my own path, baggage and all.