Disposable.

My heart needs to write. So, here I am.

For the past week, there's been a quote that has stayed in the forefront of my mind.

"It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew." 

-  Henry Rollins -

I can't tell you just how true this is.

Before I go any further, let me say this... I'm not perfect nor would I ever claim to be. I remind myself each day through my thoughts, behaviors, and actions that I am still a work in progress. I'm a person that is often guided (or misguided) by her emotions and at times, this makes me irrational and quick to react. It's one of my biggest faults.

Now with that being said, one thing I have learned about myself in the past five years is that if I love you, I will use everything in me to not react to a situation that might damage our relationship because I value it too much. I learned that lesson the hard way once and vowed I'd never do it again.

In spite of this, there have been a few times in my life where I've lost friendships that I didn't expect to lose. Most of them were during my younger years and occurred simply because we grew apart as we grew up. But over the last few years, I've lost two friendships that I expected to last a lifetime. In fact, both of these people were in our wedding... a wedding party Mike and I chose based on who we felt would be in our lives for the long haul. (Hence the reason our wedding party was quite small.)

I hate it when I'm wrong.

One loss was a few years ago and one was much more recently. With the addition of this second loss, I've found myself really struggling with why this has happened twice now.

I have so many questions running through my head. Questions like:

How did I get here again? What did I do to deserve this?
Why did you ask something of me and when I couldn't deliver it, you throw our friendship away? Why was our friendship conditional to you?
How are you content with not being a part of my (or my kids) life? Or not having me be a part of yours?
While it feels like I did everything I could have to prevent this, could I have done more?
Are my expectations of my close friendships too high?
Why didn't you show us the same respect of thinking before reacting that we showed you? After all those years of friendship, it seems like we owed that to each other.
I miss you... don't you miss me/us too? Or are you just unwilling to admit it?

My heart just feels broken. I don't know why my friendship to these people was so disposable, why they could walk away so easily after so many years.

I know it hasn't been that easy for me. It saddens me so deeply that at this point I won't get to be a part of their lives... see them have children... share in the joys and the sorrows that life dishes out. It also saddens me that they won't get to be a part of my life... know my children as they grow... share in my own joy and sorrows.

Every time I look at our wedding photos, my heart becomes heavy now. The one thing I had hoped to avoid when choosing our wedding party has happened.

I've often wondered if maybe I put too much stock into people. Maybe I trust them too deeply. I've always been the kind of girl who would rather have a few very close friends rather than a lot of acquaintances (though I seem to have a lot of those these days too, thankfully). Maybe that's my recipe for disaster. Maybe it places too much pressure on my friendships.

But what would life be without those close friendships? It seems like it would be more lonely. Less intimate. Less meaningful.

I am so blessed to have the friends I do, even after losing these two very important people. I'm thankful to have my husband, who truly has been my best friend (even when he's also been a royal pain!) for the past 11 years. His friendship really has been unconditional.... he's seen the best and worst of me and still, we're there for each other. He chooses to love me rather than leave me. He's stuck by my side through both of these ordeals (as they have directly impacted him and his friendships, as well) and supported me the best that he could. I'm thankful to have a few girlfriends that I'd move mountains for because their friendships really do feel unconditional. We may talk every day or every few weeks but regardless of where on this spectrum they fall, the friendships remained strong. I'm thankful for my sister and my mom, both of whom have also seen me through the best and worst my life has had to offer and who I consider friends in addition to family.

I place a lot of stock into these existing friendships.

I pray that they remain strong and that twenty years down the road, I'll look beside me and they'll still be standing there. Having stood the test of time.

I pray that someday I'll understand why this had to happen. I pray that someday I'll look back and no longer doubt what I could have done differently.

I pray that I find peace in all of this. Closure.

And if I'm to be completely honest, I admit that I still find myself praying that someday, somehow, these two people make it back into my life. It's happened before, only time will tell if it could happen again. <3