As I get older I am realizing how important certain friendships are in my life. At the same time I am also becoming more disappointed by certain friendships in my life. Growing up and friendships are a double edged sword.

I am not a person who has a million friends. I have a few close friends. But I would do anything for them. My friends are like my family. I know I can call on them when I need something and expect them to call on me when they need something. This is both good and bad. These are my friendship expectations. I have a problem with expectations as I admitted yesterday. When these expectations aren’t met I not only become upset but I feel deeply hurt. It takes me awhile to recover from it. To put it behind me. I am not saying this is a healthy approach. I am trying to actually work on this approach. Trying to allow myself to “let things go” easier than I do. But it’s hard. The “letting go”- that is a post for another day.

The point though is that I have been very private lately about Mom’s health. Especially with everything that began happening last week. At first I really didn’t want to tell anyone. I think in telling people other than Sister K, Dad, and Husband it became more real. I had to explain what was going on at a time when we didn’t know what was going on. I had to verbalize it. Then came Wednesday and I thought, you know I should probably update my friends on this. If they were in my shoes I would want to know if something had happened to one of their Moms. I’ll just send a few emails and then won’t think much of it. What I didn’t expect though is how good it would feel to read their responses. It was like a big email hug from friends who live anywhere from 2 hours away to hundreds of miles away. I read these emails and I let myself feel. It felt good to feel this love.

I am not a person who the second Mom went into the hospital I was updating my facebook status. That is not how I wanted to handle this. I wanted to handle it in my own way. I am dealing with something new to me and wanted to deal with it privately without a lot of outside attention. But I am also realizing it is nice to have support from other people outside of my family.

There is also a double edge to this. There are also the people who I thought would be there and be supportive that don’t step up. That part hurts. I think my mind tends to focus more on the half empty part. But the point is I need to find a way to block those thoughts out. I don’t need to think about them. I need to remember that. I need to stop the negative thoughts. I have so much going on in my life that if you are going to bring negativity to my mind I will block you out. 

Simply stated, I don’t have time for negative. In reality no one should put up with negative thoughts or negative people in their life. It’s not worth it. But it’s especially not worth it in a time of crisis. It is in a time of crisis when you realize who those true friends really are. The ones who make you laugh, the ones who pray for you, the ones who say let me know what I can do, the ones who you can ask to send your Mom cards. Those are my friends. I need to focus more on these people. In the end these friends are the only ones that matter. It’s these friends who I can lean on and these friends who are going to rally behind me, support me, and get me through this.

Have you ever faced a crisis and realized the love and support you do have from your friends? Have you ever felt disappointed by a friend? Do you ever struggle with keeping the negative thoughts out?