Love More. Live Better. A Southern Couple's Guide to Successful Living

As some of you might remember, a few months ago I wrote the post YOU are an emotional piggy bank, where I talked about your emotional piggy bank, and how it should be filled by emotional boosts and not emotional drains.  Some of you might be tempted to think that that post and today’s post conflict, but they do not.   Forgiveness is applied when someone has wronged you (generally), and it is your choice as to whether or not you can accept what they’ve done and move on (an apology goes a long way, as we all know, but it doesn’t always happen that way).

I have a friend that I have known for 17 years, and for 6-7 of those years, we did not speak.  This friend and I were inseparable throughout several of our high school years, and only drifted slightly when I moved away.  A few years ago, the blow up was partially their fault, and partially mine.  This friend did something in very bad taste, and I, not realizing it was a cry for help, did not help them, but instead, sent them away.  Flash forward to this year…this friend contacted me, and after years to think about what we’d both done wrong, I felt it was a good idea to try again.  And I’m glad I did.  It might not be just like old times, since we live a couple hours apart, but it’s easy again…the way a close friendship should be.  This is not to say that we don’t all have friends who are, as another friend of mine likes to call them, “small-dosers”, i.e. friends you can only be around for a limited time so they don’t drive you crazy.  We all have those friends, but the closest friends shouldn’t be hard to be around, and thankfully, for me and my friend, it isn’t.

Do you have a friend that you’ve lost touch with for this type of reason?  Do you think about them often, wishing there was a way to get things back to better times?  Do you think that they’re character is good and they are worth a second chance, or the extra effort?  If so, make that effort.  If they contact you, go slowly, but learn to forgive and forget.  Forgiveness is one of the things that makes us human, and I like to try it when I can.  This doesn’t mean it will always work.  Sometimes, a person’s character is lost forever, or they have hurt you so badly that you cannot imagine ever forgiving them, or they weren’t a good enough friend in the first place to merit forgiveness, since you didn’t care to be around them anyway.  The dilemma and decision are yours to make.  Just remember that if you thought them worth “best friend” status before, keep that in mind if they offer an olive branch.

Tags: emotional boosts, emotional drains, emotional piggybank, Relationships

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Wild Card Wednesday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.