Managing Expectations

Live. Write. Heal. Right?

I have recently had an over 10-year friendship dissolve evolve into something strange and I have been working through the emotions involved with that.  I am in a state of reflection right now, trying to figure out what happened.  Should I just leave well-enough alone?  Could I have done something differently – should I have? If I am honest with myself I can say that I have felt some distance begin to grow between us for a while. It has always been the big, white elephant in the middle of the room. I am sure if I felt it, she felt it too but neither of us has said anything. When we first began our friendship we were very much alike but had no idea until much later. In the beginning I was a single parent with no man so we hung out,  enjoyed each other’s company, shopped together, laughed together. But as I have grown and she has grown (perhaps), I began to feel a chasm between us. I first noticed a change in our interaction when I got married. I don’t think she was jealous or anything like that. She had just gotten out of a 10-year marriage and was newly single and was definitely enjoying her new found freedom, so I don’t think that had anything to do with it. At first it started with small comments about what my husband was or wasn’t doing for/with me. Then I would vent to her about stuff that was going on between us – stuff every newlywed couple grows through when they are, well, newlyweds.

Then as time progressed on, she would do or say things with her own life that I didn’t necessarily agree with (and vice-versa) but I was no saint so I didn’t judge her or form any opinions about what she was or wasn’t doing because – who was I to tell a grown woman what to do with her life? Hey, if she liked it I loved it. Well needless to say, those early seeds of indifference and turning a blind eye to certain things began to harvest and now I sit here with a dead friendship that I don’t know what to do with. I say my actions are probably mostly responsible for this because as I have evolved as a woman, my outlook on life, love and relationships has changed and I just don’t respond to things the way I used to. I actually have a conscience now that I try not to offend and I often will opt to do the right thing as opposed to the thing that feels good. I can’t necessarily say the same for her – not judging – it just is what it is.

So let me give some background to why I am here.  I recently experienced a death in my family that I was trying to work through and in the midst of all that, my friend called me and I was unable to answer the phone. I was unable to answer the phone twice – as she reminded me when she finally got me on the phone. Once she said that to me, without really noticing, I got really angry and shouted “I was busy – I had a death in my family!” I was really irritated that she said that to me given the type of stressful weekend I had just had. I couldn’t believe that here I was, going through something very painful and the only thing she could say was I called you twice this weekend?!?!  As if I was rude/wrong for not answering or returning her call.  Now granted, she didn’t know that I was going through a death in my family, but even if I wasn’t, since when is it OK for someone to say so I called you this weekend? I have never understood what people expected of you when they say something like that.  What kind of whacked out abandonment issues does one have when a person isn’t even allowed to not answer your calls?  The whole experience left me feeling kind of funky.

So, why am I so upset you ask? Because I would NEVER in all seriousness, in a million years say to another individual (outside of my husband) that I called them when they didn’t call me back. It just makes you seem needy and clingy and quite frankly, all it does is invite the person to either lie to you (Oh, I didn’t see it), or hurt your feelings (I know. And?). Either way it doesn’t end pretty so that is why God invented caller ID and voicemail. Obviously, the person was unable to answer the call at the time and when another time is more suitable, they will call you back. Is it just me? The second reason I am so upset is because once I heard that the person I deem a friend a experienced a death in their family, I would have immediately switched gears and said oh no, how selfish of me, sorry to hear that, are you ok? Who died? How’s your family…yada, yada, yada. You know stuff FRIENDS say. Instead, she was wrapped in her feelings of the fact that I snapped at her. Said a few empty words I don’t even remember and abruptly hung up the phone. I haven’t really heard from her since. I have since tried to call her back (yes, I left a voicemail) and sent an an email apologizing for snapping at her – which she responded to – but nothing of substance. I haven’t heard from her since.

I remember talking with my mother about life one day and she said, “Baby, just because someone has always been your friend, doesn’t mean they have to stay that way forever. Length of time is never a good reason to stay in a relationship that has stopped being reciprocal”. Simple but so complex. That conversation with my mother came back to me after me and my friend’s latest – riff (for lack of a better word). And then after speaking with another one of my good girlfriends she dropped something on me that I have NEVER heard before but it hit me like a ton of bricks.

“Sometimes you have to manage your expectations of how you think people should treat you. Just because you are a certain kind of friend to someone, it doesn’t mean they are going to be that same kind of friend to you.

Wow.

I meditated and pondered on that all night long last night. Managing Expectations. That isn’t a new terminology to me at all because that is what I do for a living and I know all about managing expectations.  I am a Marketing Account Manager (i.e. Project Manager) and all day long I manage my client’s expectations, manage my internal teams expectations but never, ever have I managed my own expectations. This is going to be new territory for me and I am not sure how to navigate these waters.

So today is my first day of trying to manage my own expectations. I am purposing not to expect people to treat me any differently than they have proven to be.  I will only be responsible for my own actions and leave others actions completely up to them. I will not hold anyone hostage for letting me down, however I will set boundaries and not accept behavior that is displeasing to me for the sake of  “friendship” and most importantly today, I will free those who want to be freed. In the words of Fantasia…”Go Ahead and Free Yourself ” I will not be anyone’s option or fair-weather friend…I don’t have to be.

Love and Light y’all…:)

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