'Tis the season

'Tis the season to be jolly!

I was reading my daily meditation book today and a sentence stuck out to me. It said, "Hanging onto a situation for which no solution is immediately apparent, only exaggerates the situation." What wisdom that is. Sometimes it's best to just sit back and let things go. Imagine that! What 3rd step wisdom, right there in front of me.

Which brings me to this. The old roommate situation. We were best friends and did everything together for most of our early recovery, but I don't think we were ever friends. Which left me with expectations. Ouch. Needless to say, in February when I moved in with my boyfriend, the relationship with her ended. Not immediately, though; a few weeks afterwards. I deleted her from FaceBook a few weeks before I moved because she was posting updates about me and they were spiteful and I was fed up and didn't want to read them anymore. A few weeks after I moved, when we were still texting here and there, she noticed I wasn't her friend anymore and that was the end of it. The straw that broke the camel's back, or something like that. She actually did me a huge favor and I just didn't know it at the time.

Realistically, I know that the friendship had ended long before that. She wasn't a good person and I was angry that she couldn't be the kind of friend I needed. I don't know why I ever expected her to treat me any different than all of the people she (we) sat and talked about behind their backs. Why am I any different? The answer to that is, I'm not. Plain and simple. People are who they are and without a desire to change, they're going to remain who they are. For me, I didn't like who I was and I wanted to become a better person; so I changed. Those old behaviors (which aren't always old) weren't working for me anymore and it was time to change. I can't say that I'm always changed because those character defects do come out from time to time, but I do make an effort to try to avoid their manifestation.

Which brings me to the second sentence that popped out to me in the reading, "It is often said that the solution to any problem lies within it." I was part of the problem and I can be part of the solution. I learned quite a few things from this old friendship. I learned how to be a nicer person, how not to treat people, how to treat people, and what kind of people I choose to have in my life. That's my solution with these relationships. I can step away at any point when something is seriously unhealthy for me. Unfortunately, it took me about 2 years to learn that. It seems like the longer the lesson, the more memorable it is.

After all, this is the season of forgiveness. It's going to begin with forgiving myself.