Saying Good-bye

I have some friends I've known forever. I like chatting with them through email, but that's about as far as it goes. Hanging out with them takes too much energy and doesn't give enough back. I don't value their advice or really care much for their opinions. I care enough about them to listen to their stories of life's drama, but not really enough to do much to help them with it.

I don't really know why I hang onto them. There's no real reason to let go I guess. It's nice to have friends at that level. I don't suppose I'll ever purposely and definitively say good bye.

But let's say I wanted to? Is it really so bad to let go of people, even if they've been there forever and you don't have a good reason to? Perhaps it would be like cleaning the closet- clear out the clutter.

I'm thinking of it all in the same context as letting go of parts of myself. I've felt a real change stirring inside lately like I'm just on the brink of something good. Could be I just got married and THAT was the something good. But I feel like I'm about to take the next step or I feel settled now on the new path from the step I just took.

The thing is, it's easier for me to think of letting go of old friends than it is of letting go of things about myself- some things I've always been but never even wanted to be. And in a way it is the same thing- it's all about relationships. How do I relate to old friends? How do I relate to myself? How do other people relate to me?

Last night my husband said something about me wanting to be a jerk. I said, sometimes I do. I generally believe in being nice to people. One thing I hate more than anything is people who are mean or critical of others, especially when there's no real reason to be. I can't tolerate someone just being a jerk because they are so caught up in themself. But sometimes I wish I could be just enough of a jerk to not care what people think or to stick up for myself or even just speak up. And to me, those things do make me feel like a jerk and that's why I don't do them even when I've talked myself into it. What really would be so bad about changing or saying goodbye to the part of myself that holds back and won't be a jerk?

I like to think that I would be strong enough to say goodbye to a friend that was always critical and looking on the bad side of things. If every time I told this person something I was excited about they told me why I couldn't do it and what's wrong with me for thinking that I could, I hope I would have the courage to say goodbye. So why can't I do that to the part of myself that responds that way when I want to do something?

It's funny, as I write this I'm having this feeling of letting go and yet what I'm really thinking of is embracing who I really am. It's like in order to become the butterfly, I have to let go of the cocoon. But it's not even that real and tangible. I'm thinking of things I've always liked but never really said I LIKE THIS. Things I've wanted to do but never really said I WANT THIS. Those things feel safe now. But there's something I have to let go of first...

What is it?

I'm not sure if this will go where I'm thinking or if I just remember this and have to blog about it so I'll try to make it fit in. Yesterday I read a newspaper article (just the local paper) about a "prophecy" in the Mormon church that is starting to be talked about with Mitt Romney trying to run for president. The prophecy says that in the last days the Constitution will hang by a thread and the priesthood will come in to save it -that's the way I heard it; in the article there were several variations. I really thought that I had been taught that as being a true thing- somewhere, never read it in the scriptures or anything. According to the article, any president of the church who has been asked, says that it has no doctrinal foundation. It's just a myth. (If anyone knows different, let me know. The way the article was written, it seemed pretty credible).

It was strange in a way to hear that something you'd thought someone you believed had told you was true, wasn't. But the weird thing was, I felt a sense of relief. I'm not sure how to explain it. I felt like, see you don't have to believe everything anyone, even in authority, has ever told you. Listen to yourself- read it yourself.

And in a way, that "explains" whatever this is I'm trying to let go of. I want to say goodbye to old friends because that's not who I am anymore. I want to say goodbye to reactions, behaviors, thoughts I have only because I've always had them- like I'm just trying to please everyone- and not because it's really who I am.

Please everyone. That's it. I told my hubby the other night that maybe I walk around in this sad mopey state all the time and I don't even realize it. He asked why that would be. My first gut reaction was "well hell! I've lived my whole life for everybody else. I don't even know what I want or like or who I am." (I didn't say the H word). And the thing is, that's not true. I have a lot of feeling like I've lived for everyone else- tried to please everyone and avoid conflict- to the point I FEEL like I don't know who I am. BUT, I DO know who I am. I just don't let it out. And that's what I have to let go of.

I don't need to start saying what I want, I need to let go of what keeps me from doing so. I don't need to figure out who I am and what I like, I need to let go of what keeps me from expressing it.
It is like old friends that I just keep hanging onto without them serving any real purpose. I never really chose you, you just became a part of me. You helped me through junior high and adolescence, but I don't really need anything from you anymore. You're more of an amusement, perhaps a nuisance, than anything anymore. I have to say goodbye.