When She Asked Me to Lie About Her Life
And I didn’t know how
Once upon a time, I lost a friend because of my inability to lie about her life. I was not going to lie to her or for her, unlike the other folks she had surrounded herself with those enablers and sycophants that swirl in modern church communities. Yes, I could keep a secret and a confidence because her life was her own BUT I was not willing to play pretend for her. She was using our friendship as if it were real. I just desperately wanted honesty.
Getting Real About Where You Come From - the Deconstructing Edition
A part of deconstructing my faith was deconstructing the truths of my family of origin. I had to look at my history to thrive in my present. Deconstructing means not recycling things merely because this is the way it has always been done. We can choose new.
That was a messy, painful process. It’s a process that is never really done.
It’s eye-opening to look at where and who you come from. My people are just as messy and unaware of their mess as every other family. Before these great, deconstructing epiphanies, I spent a chunk of young adulthood not seeing us. They all convinced me we were better than…when we were not all that different from any other family.
When deconstructing faith and family, there is no room for rosy-colored glasses. The shiny veneer will slow things down unless you spend some time chipping it away. Remove the high sheen so you can see things better.
After doing all that work, being around people who have not worked to deconstruct the truth about their history and people can be very triggering.
It’s like I’m expected to see their truth the way they see their truth… and I don’t always have the energy and space to fake it for them. So, I get quiet.
When someone’s energy is invested in maintaining their false narratives, I have to take a step back because trying to meet that need for them is exhausting. I’m not good at doing delusions.
I fought hard to own my family’s truth. Now it is awkward to be close to folks who fake it. They wear masks in so many spaces.
Part of growing up beyond the norms of being a firstborn daughter raised in a high-control religious tradition is learning how to make space for others without allowing their issues to
Become mine to resolve or fix
Drain my well dry.
Allowing people to live in their delusions is self-care. It’s not mine to own or fix.
Losing Friends and Keeping Friends
I’m not the best at keeping friends. It could be I have a history of not being a good friend picker or maybe moving all the time as a child warped how invested I am willing to be in another human being because of how folks get left behind when you move.
When I see a person with a long gathering of humans they consider friends I’m suspicious. How can you possibly maintain any depth of friendship with that many people? Maybe they use “friend” too liberally when they have many acquaintances. It’s not that they go deep with a whole bunch of people because they don’t. They hold on to folks even long-term and it’s not all that deep. It’s surface-level relating.
I only want to keep what is deep and meaningful. I’ve learned to release what can easily be left behind or what can easily leave me behind because it does go both ways.
How do you keep and release friends?
I also believe we have some friendships for a season, and when the season ends, some folks continue to hold on too long while others are okay with letting things go.
Some of us are releasers; some of us are collectors. There’s probably a space where we should note attachment styles but I’m not wise on these differences. I’m learning. There’s something to be said for remaining quiet about things we do not know.
Friendship Comes In Many Forms
After the year of silence, on the exact anniversary of when things came undone, a woman in my neighborhood who I had just met … stepped up and asked if I would be interested in a girls’ night. Thus began another level in healing my broken places. I still believed in god back then so it felt divine. Even though god is not how I define my life now, I can see that moment as not purely coincidental. The universe opened up a space of healing what had been deeply broken. The ancestors sent a woman to speak into my pain, hug me when I cried, love my children well, and help me pack when it came time for me to move along again. She walked the path with me when it had been silent for a year. She praised my ability to capture mushrooms and dragonflies with a camera. She didn’t criticize or condemn me when I found my voice through writing. And she didn’t godslobber my life.
But this friend was only for a season… while I can see her life unfolding because of social media, we are not friends anymore.
What This Means in My Present
This is where I am in the dark of winter
Wondering about adult friendships
Looking for how to walk with folks who are a little bit delusional without being triggered
Being honest with myself about the gift of people no matter how they happen to arrive in my life
I’m also giving myself grace. I’m not necessarily in a headspace for new voices in my life. I’m a fibromyalgia spoonie. I work. I mother. I wife. I’m involved in community things. I’m a daughter. I’m a friend to a few lovely humans. And I let the rest of those expectations that I should have a host of folks surrounding me, I let that pressure go.
I know what it looks like for folks to claim they have had a mob of friends for a very long time - but those friends have never been honest with them about the harm they cause others. I’m not looking for those kinds of people - the ones who will smile in my face while helping me live from my delusions.
It’s the first Sunday of 2025 - what madness are you making? What delusions are you dismantling?
J.
