Y’know, I am well aware, perhaps acutely so, that people come and go in your life. Nothing but family seem to endure and of course even those are taken from you.<\/p>\n
In February of this year my Gran died. She was 93 and had a long life. I will never count myself luckier than I am for going home at Christmas and seeing her one last time. No more will my Mum have to put up with weekly questions about when I am coming home and if I am going to stay in Japan for good. I’m sure she’d bear them again in a heartbeat.<\/p>\n
For me it is especially sad as she was my Dad’s Mum and it’s another tie to him gone. She really was quite formidable and you could get to thinking that she was going to live forever – especially when you live in a different continent and sadly saw her rarely.<\/p>\n
So it’s been a little tough and I’ve been feeling quite down. Work has been hellish of late. Peoples egos and self-importance are running out of control. But I have had friends to help me through it. As I am positive I have helped them in their own tough times.<\/p>\n
Loyalty is perhaps the aspect of friendship I hold dearest. It’s absolutely vital (in my little world) for a truly close friendship to survive. Trust is critical. Anything else really seems cynical and quite sad to me. It’s perhaps naive, perhaps a values system like mine will only lead to repeated heartbreak, but I can’t be anything other than I am. This is me.<\/p>\n
Last month my three closest friends in Japan betrayed that trust.<\/p>\n
It was shattering. The day I found out was a very dark day indeed. My time left in Japan would be numbered in days now if I hadn’t had some awesome students at work the next day. What was perhaps most hurtful about it all was that their actions revealed a complete lack of understanding about who I am or how I feel. It also displayed a absolute lack of faith in me.<\/p>\n
Lies I can understand and forgive. Especially when the offender seems to display genuine remorse about their actions. People were at a very low ebb and I understand self interest can take over briefly. They confessed, another indicator of remorse.<\/p>\n
Or is it? Go with me here, if you are still reading. Perhaps the lie had gone as far as it could as a lie. Perhaps the way things were headed, the ‘little secret’ was going to come out. Why then, couldn’t this ‘remorse’ purely be some form of self preservation and protection? You maybe can start to see my need for truthfulness in friendship.<\/p>\n
It strikes me that I am perhaps something of an optimist. For a (it seems) long time I have felt like a pessimistic so and so. I really can see a dark future sometimes. But isn’t a “naive” willingness to believe in the good of people optimistic? Deep I know that anyone I would choose to try and make a good friend is a good person. I like<\/span> love them because I know that they share many of the values I hold dear. Or I think I do.<\/p>\n I can forgive, and do, if that is what these people desire. I cannot, however, turn the cheek again and again. I lost my best friend and was seriously upset. Do you know what I found out? I don’t need them. I seriously don’t. In my closeness to them, I have not realised that there are others near to me that care for me. I have been here long enough that relying on such a small group of people is foolish, for when my time here ends, and the end draws closer all the time, I will be the one to have missed out on their friendship and the joy that that friendship brings.<\/p>\n I’ve also already noticed a huge financial change in my life. I was literally peeing money against a wall. It stops, in it’s insanity, here. This month, I’ve been to Hiroshima, bought two stunning hard drives, been out for dinner several times and still have a similar amount of money to what I had in an old regular month. Nuts!<\/p>\n No one likes to be used, and I’m getting to feel that I was just the best option at the time. When I was dating last year I made sure I didn’t abandon my good friends. I’m sure my ex girlfriend was somewhat bemused by the amount of emails I received and sent, generally to the same person. I can’t discard someone, no matter what. And if my girlfriend can’t handle my friendships then we are in trouble. my ‘best’ friend has a new girlfriend. Good for him, he needs it. His cynicism and pessimism are already lifting. He proclaims happiness on his blog<\/a> (you’ll understand why I need to cite his blog in a moment) and that pleases me. However the only contact I have had with him, when he’s in the same city as her, has been initiated by me. It stops now. That’s not friendship.<\/p>\n It’s time to turn over a new leaf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Y’know, I am well aware, perhaps acutely so, that people come and go in your…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andy-thomson.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andy-thomson.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andy-thomson.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andy-thomson.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andy-thomson.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/andy-thomson.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andy-thomson.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andy-thomson.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andy-thomson.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}