Friendship is an Odd Thing

Friends are what you have left when everything else is gone.   Too many so-called "friends" are there when the times are good and you are easy to get along with.  Let something happen and you see them fall by the wayside.

If you get sick with something like cancer or some other dread disease, they still talk to you but they really do not know what to say.  That is understandable.  I have had friends with terminal illness and what I have found is you ask them what is okay to talk about.  People who are dying often want to talk, but others around them find the subject disturbing.  They do not want to consider the fact that they will have to say good-bye.

Divorce is a friend dividing experience as well.  When you get a divorce, you know which ones will never speak to you again for fear of offending your ex.  Then there are the ones you wish would go away because they keep bringing the ex-spouse into the picture trying to "fix" it.  There are friends that you will miss because they felt they had to choose sides.  There are the others that dumped you both and will seldom speak to either of you.

It really does not matter how long you have known someone.  That is the peculiar thing about friendship.  You can form close ties very quickly and some will last for years.  With any good friendship, you can pick up where you left off in spite of distance or time.

A true friend can tell you when you are wrong in spite of your anger.  They will tell you when your choice of attire really is not becoming to you.  They will tell you to apologize to your spouse.  They will not talk about you behind your back unless they are arranging a surprise party.  They remember your birthday.  They send you pictures of their family.  They call you from time to time.  They are there when everyone else has gone because the situation is too difficult. 

There are those times when you leave a job and you are cut off from all of your former co-workers.  Suddenly, all those people that you talked with everyday, the ones that you shared your life with have abruptly become uncommunicative.  Those chats you had in the hall are no more.  The arms that gave you comfort when there was a death in the family are gone.  The ones that you gave a word of encouragement to no longer respond to calls and emails.  No one comes to you with questions.  With all but two, it is like you never worked there.  It appears that you have made so little positive impact that it might have been just as well that you had never been there. 

Your importance to the company was brought to zero in a heartbeat and it appears that no one cared.  Any attempt at some sort of affirmation is met with silence.  What you thought was a vital contribution has been determined to be a waste of company resources and of no importance to anyone.  You helped no one.  You left no positive influence upon anyone.   No one misses you and no one cares that you are gone.

Your life, once dependent upon the capriciousness of an ill-tempered boss and his minions, now needs to be redefined.  Your affirmation must no longer be based upon "a job well done" or what you can do to make sure things at the office run smoothly.   It no longer matters to any of them, nor should it to you.  Unfortunately, to you, it still does.  There is that part of you that would like to think that in 15 years you were able to contribute something meaningful and lasting to an apparently ungrateful company. 

The sad fact is that you should never have given that much of yourself to the job anyway.  It only provided an avenue for you to be taken advantage of and thrown away like so much shredded paper.  The job thrived at the expense of your family and your own health.

The supposed friendships were nothing more than job-related.  It is time to move on and put all that behind you.  If you were the unfortunate one who actually thought any of those friendships would survive leaving, my prayers are with you.  It is a painful process to know you spent so much time with people who never really cared beyond asking you about your weekend. 

Next time, spend that time with The Lord.  He really does care.  HE is the Friend who never leaves you.