Words of wisdom?

A lot of people post 'pictures' containing pithy sayings on Facebook. Sometimes these sayings are funny, or witty; some are inspiring or emotional. Sometimes they are just schmaltzy and I shudder at the sight of them; but sometimes there are words that seem to be wise and speak to me, and I in turn 'like' or 'share' the item on my own Facebook wall. Today I saw this quote (above), and it spoke to me in an interesting way.

I recently made the difficult decision to walk away from a particular friendship. The decision was hard and painful, but at the time I was convinced that I was doing the right thing in acknowledging the dysfunctionality of that relationship and the importance of cutting the ties, for the sake of my emotional well-being, and to allow me to focus on the important task of caring for Mum. Whilst I'm still convinced it was the right thing to do, lately the loss of that relationship has hit me again, and I've been grieving the loss in a new way (which is a normal thing to happen, and one that my therapist told me to expect, but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier). 

In the past week or so I've also seen a few of these pithy quotes around the internet that speak from the perspective of a person who has had people in their life walk away. The kind of sentiment expressed in these sayings was something like: "Don't sweat it when people leave you. Real friends will stick by you and be loyal, so if  someone leaves, they weren't a real friend to start with".

Seeing these sayings made me begin to question my own actions: had I given up too soon on that friendship? was I not a loyal enough friend to stick it out through thick and thin? was I being selfish to put my own needs before the needs of the other person (even though throughout our whole friendship it had felt like I had spent most of my time fitting in with the other person's needs and what he wanted, and he rarely ever did that for me)? 

Self doubt now mixed with the sense of grief I was already feeling at the loss of the friendship, and it wasn't fun. For the last week or so I've been finding it especially hard to sleep. Late at night all this stuff just whizzes around in my brain and won't let me rest. The darkness and loneliness close in and I keep going over and over the words that have been exchanged; the responses I wanted to make but didn't (for various reasons), what I might say to this person now if he ever contacts me... All mixed and mashed up in my exhausted and addled brain ... and sleep eludes me.

So when I saw this quote today, it felt as if the words spoke directly into my current emotional turmoil and self-doubt. Sure, it may not be the most theologically sound statement, and may not stand up to the rigorous critical evaluation that many of my deep thinking friends would want to subject it to; but it provided a little comfort and reassurance to me at a time when it was very welcome. 

And sometimes you just have to take what you can get and give thanks for it when it comes along.