I am not good at accepting that friendships or hobbies have run their course. One of the very few times I managed to make a clean break was then I retired from teaching. I will always remember what my Head Teacher said to me on my last day - "Walk away and don't look back." I did walk away and I didn't look back.
Since I retired I have met a lot of different people and in a few I saw qualities that I hated. It took far too long for the "relationship vampires", the "habitual liars" and the "anything to get noticed scientists" to get excluded from my life and I blame myself for this. Just as disappointing are the few people from my past who seem to have decided to end a friendship that I thought was healthy and that would last forever. I will miss these former friends and sometimes I wonder what prompted their decision but it takes two to communicate and continuing to send emails to people who never reply rather smacks of desperation doesn't it!
“Friendship never dies a natural death. It dies when we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies from errors and tarnishing and from weariness and withering.”
These departures have made space for some new, mainly young, friends to come into my life and they have added a great deal of pleasure and purpose to my weekly routine.
Late News
My daughter sent me a link shortly after I had posted this blog entry. Reading what the author wrote struck such a chord with me that I'm posting a link to another piece by the same author that I hope visitors to this blog will read.
http://www.alexandrafranzen.com/2014/10/26/good-question-what-should-i-say-to-a-friend-who-is-constantly-flaking-out/
ReplyDeleteSaw this and thought of you.
Thank you Sally - she has covered how I feel rather better than I would have managed. I don't understand how anybody who has exchanged emails with me for so many years could suddenly go silent. I'm disappointed in CW!
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