I haven’t written any entries about life lately, but it has been the same ol’ same ol’. The Christmas season played out as usual. Basically it grated on my sanity and I was looking forward to normalcy to return. We also were pretty tight on money this year, so very little gift giving. Fortunately for all of us, none of us care about getting gifts that much and rather expect nothing anyway.

January has been okay. Mom did hit low on her bank account and needed aid from me, so what would be considered a sizable amount in my books was given. She says she’ll try to pay me back as soon as possible, but I don’t really care. I told her she didn’t have to. How it will play out ultimately is undetermined.

Anyway… what did “inspire” to write is none of the above. If anything it was something I realized during my mom and my usual haircut trip. Basically it is this: I definitely make for a shoddy friend.

I’ve always had my morals when growing up. I had my views of right and wrong, good and bad when it came to many things. I always wanted to be a good friend.

I realize that I look at friendship in an almost idyllic way… perhaps as silly as how little girls dreaming of their prince charming or Mr. Right. I would take the promise of “Best Friends Forever” to the grave. I likely still would considering how I am wired. Friendships to more… those relationships are like precious gems to me, I think. One might ask, how does that make me a shoddy friend? Then if there are some bright people out there, they already know.

When I had a friend I would make a promise to myself to always be there for him or her when needed. I would be helpful, steadfast, loyal… I would be the best friend I could possibly be. I would always stick up for my friends, always be on their side… and if two of my friends were fighting, I’d do what I could to make them forgive and forget. I put my very soul into my friendships.

That was my downfall.

Friendship isn’t treasured to that extent by others. Maybe there are some out there who treasure their relationships to such an extent, but I have yet to find them. Because of this, I am bound to resent any friend I come to have who doesn’t take out friendship to the same level. Unappreciated, forgotten, unnoticeable.

It was my fault.

I told my mom at some point, “I really should have ended my friendship with them after elementary.”

I was too idealistic, though. I believed in our promises. We’d be best friends forever. I fought for years to keep the ties firm, but they wore away each passing year, month, week, day.

Preadolescence, beginning adolescence… almost everyone wants to fit in, find a niche, be cool… That is what my childhood friends searched for then. I never felt that way. I already had a place, a niche… I had it in them. That place wasn’t good enough anymore though.

I watched them get crushes on boy bands, pour over teen magazines and so forth in the beginning. None of that really interested me, but I didn’t shun it either. Nonetheless, they already were entering a world I didn’t understand. Still, they were them and that was all that mattered. A year passes, we’ve been separated quite a bit due to different classes. They met new people, made new friends… but at the same time they changed. Trying to be cool they stopped caring about homework, cursed and so forth. They bad mouthed the boy bands they coveted just a year or two before  and deny ever liking them. They make things I take quite seriously into jokes and I slowly become the person they turn to for advice when they have problems, but leave in the dust when they want someone fun.

End of middle school, beginning of high school… I don’t know at all them anymore. They take the side of those more influential because they are afraid for their reputations. They get into trouble, do drugs and try to be bad ass. They try to cheat off me – one time they harassed me via the phone one night so I had to unplug the phone line. One becomes a two-faced bitch who would make fun of me behind my back, laugh how I was a fag and denied it when I confronted her. Others were friends with Kennedy.

It was around that time the resentment surfaced finally. It was around that time I was being codependent. It was around that time the promise no longer existed on both sides.

Yes…

I definitely make for a shoddy friend when it comes to the majority. Because this world is made up of empty promises. I tried to keep a promise that never mattered to others and it near killed me. It didn’t kill me, because the promise no longer existed. It broke. It broke when my friends no longer were my friends other than in my head. It broke when I began to resent them and began to hate how they never cared to be good friends in return.

It took a long time to get over that… a couple of years or so, perhaps. Now, all I know is, I should have just quit trying way back when…
Despite all the pain and sorrow experienced due to those relationships, though… those pains are nothing compared to the pains I felt from the two most emotional, intellectual, spiritual relationships I have had in this life so far. I still love the two people. In various times of my life they have been my best friends. Because of that, they have caused the greatest of pain sometimes.

The second most painful would deal with the person who is still an active part in my life right now. She hurt me back when I was just beginning high school. On an outsider’s perspective, the entire things was plain silly. Looking back, we know it was a huge misunderstanding. Her reactions and her words hurt me terribly that day. I cried on my way to school. I cried in the library as I sat by my best friend at the time. I cried later on that weekend.

The most painful dealt with the very friend who sat with me in the library. I’d have to say he has hurt me most of all. That time is long ago now, but I know… he hurt me the most. I remember that night, crying to the person who had hurt me the second worst, I said,”I know I’ll make it though. If I could live before I met him, I can live without him again.”

To my great fortune we didn’t end on bleak terms. We don’t talk much anymore, but I know he’d there somewhere. Out of all of my ended friendships, he is my small glimmer of hope. The promise of friendship… He kept it. I think I might actually believe he always will keep it.

I really don’t know if I am really made for having friends. I really don’t. From what I have learned in life, such things are fleeting. It has been almost seven years since I moved and I still have made no friends. I have my acquaintances, my family and the lovely animals that make up our four-legged family. I find I am actually content with this really. If friendships are so fickle, I do not wish to deal with such. And yet, at the same time though… just to find one person who does care to such an extent… that would be beautiful.

I guess I’m just not a very hopeful person.