Make new friends, but keep the old — One is silver and the other gold.
Sometimes, I feel like I don’t matter at all to friends. A good friend of mine is having a baby in June and had a baby shower yesterday. I only knew because I saw a picture someone posted and asked another friend what I had missed. And I logged in to facebook tonight to see that some friends of mine are going to a shower for her next weekend. I was invited to neither.
I was tagged in a photoset over the weekend as well – a Sex and the City post:
The friend who tagged me said in the caption how this reminded her of college and all of our “couch therapy sessions”! I definitely laughed when I saw it, but it also hurt my heart.
I haven’t talked to the friend who posted it in over two years.
I sent her a card last year, a letter of amends for all the wrong I had done over the course of my eating disorder. She responded briefly saying she would respond further, but never did. But she has tagged me in a few photos of “the good times” recently and it has left me wondering why. When she posted this, I sent her a message telling her I missed her and this photo made me laugh and mourn simultaneously. Facebook has told me that she read the message over 24 hours ago. But she hasn’t responded.
I am in tears because I feel like I don’t matter to anybody. I’m not invited to your baby shower, for pete’s sake? That time when you invite people over to fawn over you and play games and give you free stuff? I’m not even important enough that you would ask me for free stuff?!
I realize that this is taking it to an extreme in thought distortion world, but it really does seem that pronounced at times. I feel like I can’t look anywhere without seeing the wreckage my eating disorder has wrought on my relationships over the past five years.
But then I remember that I have new friends. Friends who are willing to listen to me whine and cry about these old friendships. Friends who are willing to house me for a few days while I visit – the first time I’ve ever done so in an emotionally healthy place. Friends who gift me with inspirational collages they’ve made because they think of me when they see it on their wall and want me to have it. Friends who surprise me by sending me a ginormous tin of the most awesome silly putty ever.
I am so incredibly thankful for these friends. I would not have survived the past year without these friends. They have saved my life, time and again.
But so did those other friends. At what point do I become “too much” for these new friends, too?
Is life just one long series of relationships coming and going? It seems that it is. Some relationships stay, but plenty others fade in and out – including those you thought for sure would last to the end of time.
Life is this uncomfortable mingling of tears of joy followed by tears of grief.
A Wilderness Love Story 
As one of your old friends, I would definitely guess that the slight was unintentional and had more to do with you being located in another town. When people live in different cities, they tend to grow apart and grow close to others. That’s a natural order of things and likely has nothing to do with your ED. If I ever have an occasion to be showered, I’ll be sure you’re invited.
It was indeed an unintentional slight (I spoke with the person soon after I posted). It did, however, trigger a lot of other emotions surrounding the natural ebb and flow of relationships and heaps and heaps of regrets.
You’re right that friendships naturally change, especially as people move geographically and through different stages of life – I just hate it. :(
I think we should just have showers for the heck of it.
These sorts of things do tend to highlight those ebbs and flows of relationships, as you mention. It’s hard not to regret the past, but I also know that you’ve done absolutely everything you can to make amends. If they choose not to accept you back into their life, they are losing an amazing friend. And I know that’s all well and good to say/hear and much harder to internalize. It IS a grieving process, one which won’t work itself out overnight, and that sucks. I’m sorry this is going on for you and is causing a lot of pain :( Know that as one of the “new” friends, you will never become “too much” for me, and I know this is true about other friends also. I’m honored and blessed to call you my friend. It’s a tough thing to go through, and I give you a lot of credit for being open to feeling it, rather than shutting it down using destructive measures. Take care of yourself and see if you can give yourself a little grace :)
Aww. I know how hard that is. I so relate to this post. I’m really sensitive to stuff like this. I just found out a facebook friend of mind not only unfriended me, but also blocked me. I don’t know when, or why. My feelings are so hurt…
I’m sorry you’re also feeling the hurt of friendships lost. A friend told me long ago that not all friends are meant to walk the entire journey with you. That doesn’t make it hurt any less, of course – but you are not alone in your grief.
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