Love Love Love

Love Love Love

How do I love my family? Why do I like people? Why do I have best friends?

Our relationships make life sweet. Our relationships can also provide us with lots of learning experiences.

Back in the day, I moved in and out of friendships. I would sometimes have large groups of friends, and sometime barely one. The down times gave me a lot of time to think.

One of the things I realized was that I had a lot of friends I didn’t like. I didn’t like their choices, I didn’t like the stuff they thought was fun, I didn’t like their music/movies/tv shows; you get the idea.

Deciding that I didn’t have to be friends with people I didn’t like was huge for me. I know it sounds really silly, but choosing my friends based on how much I liked them rather than whether they liked me was a minor miracle for me.

Why do I choose my friends? What makes me like people? Why can I choose?

Back in the day, I spent a lot of time with people I didn’t like so I could do my  bad things more easily; drinking and drugs. That was really painful, and made me want to drink and do drugs even more because my life was so gross.

When I made that choice, to stop using mood altering chemicals, I started meeting new people, in therapy groups, in AA meetings, and some of them I really liked. And then I had a feeling that was pretty unusual for me. I found that there were people whom I respected. Wow. That was an amazing feeling.

As a child, all my heroes were fictional, starting with Superman. As a sick kid,  I loved the idea of being invulnerable. But I knew I could never be invulnerable, I could never be Superman. And I was so caught up in my unhappiness that I couldn’t really see anyone else very clearly. What a funny thing that is.

So I started meeting amazing people; kind, interesting to me, working to make their lives better, creating good spaces for others to improve their lives. Respectable. And fun.

As I became friends with them, I had more fun. And suddenly I had role models, people who were living in ways I wanted to live. Inspiring people.

I love that my heros are my friends.

Why do I like people? What makes me choose good friends? Why do I have besties?

Since relationships are not always easy, I try to remember that you cannot disappoint me, only my expectations of you can disappoint me. I try to remember that either everything is personal, or nothing is. I try to assume the relationship, that just because we have a miscommunication doesn’t mean the relationship is over. I try to remember that I feel better when I choose the high road.

How have I changed from thinking that people suck to living in a world of love?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04212014

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