When it's time to say good-bye

I am grieving you can’t be the person I wanted you to be, that I wish you could be. I am sorry you can’t grow up, that you can’t see the world though eyes or the perspective of someone else. This has been a long time coming, and I’ve fought it for a very long time. I’ve waited for you to mature, act like an adult, and as I’ve bluntly put it, grow up. I can see now that it is impossible. I mean you are nearly middle aged now, and really if it hasn’t happened by now, it’s just not going to. I go over in my mind so many things you have said and done over the years, and honestly I’m disappointed in myself that it’s taken this long for me to let go. Others have told me you were who you were, and you weren’t going to change, and I just didn’t want to see it.

I go over in my mind the things you have said and done over the years. There have been the little things like when you claimed to have made your matron of honor dress for my wedding, even though we both know my mother and I did nearly all the work on it (thanks for letting me know I needed to do it just 4 days before the wedding BTW). Then there are the really bad things, like when you told me that it was “too boring” to spend time with your father who was dying of cancer. Or when you told me your tinnitus was harder to deal with than people who loose limbs, are dying of incurable cancer, and your father dying (though you couldn't be bothered to stick with the treatment that actually was working). I still clung to hope that you would eventually mature, could see the error of some of the things you had said and done. Even when you told me that it sucked that your mother in law had breast cancer, not because she would have to go through treatments, or could possibly die, but because you would no longer have a free baby sitter, I was appalled, but I told myself she doesn’t really mean that. But you did, you meant everything you said because you are incapable of seeing how another person might feel. It took until you belittled me over being upset over losing my baby. I tried to brush it off at first, but you wouldn’t let up. You had to keep insisting that not only must there be something wrong with me to have lost the baby, and that I wasn’t doing enough to have kept her, you insisted that I “get over it”,and “let it go” because after only a few weeks I was still grieving my loss. You even insisted that I help you find maternity clothes, asking me over and over to help you look and telling me what it was going to be like for you to be pregnant and telling me “not that you’d know”. Later you couldn’t even apologize for your words, and insisted that you meant them. Then you were told by others that what you did was wrong, and you lied. You said the exact opposite had happened. That you looked out for me, comforted me, and even told me I might want to do something else because you were going baby shopping. We both know what you really did, and what you really said. I guess you can live with it, but I can’t anymore. So I’m done.

I can’t keep forgiving you and keep any kind of respect for myself. I’ve begun to think of it like when I left my abusive ex. I kept waiting for him to get better. To be the person he claimed he was. But he couldn’t be that person. He could only be an abuser, he would only take from me, and could never give, could never love, even though he said he did. He simply wasn’t capable of loving anyone. You are like that in a way. You are not capable of really caring about other people enough to see what you have done or said. You can’t act like a mature adult, and see that other people have feelings. I feel sorry for you, and there is still a part of me that wants to keep forgiving you, but I just can’t anymore. I’ve reached my limit. So I have to let you go. You are just too toxic for me to keep subjecting myself to you. If I keep looking the other way, and stay your friend I wonder what that says about me? That I think that kind of behavior is ok? That I’ll accept anything? That I am ok with being a doormat? That I’m ok with how you think of and treat other people? I had to leave my abusive ex for my own sanity, and I see now that I have to let our friendship die for the same reasons. It’s funny in a way because you two hated each other so much, but I think that’s because you were so alike in some ways at least. Since you are family I’m sure I will sometimes see you, and I don’t have a problem being cordial around you, but I just can’t be your friend anymore. So I’ll grieve the loss of our friendship, the person who I have been friends with since we were literally babies, and be sad. Sad you can’t be the person I’d like you to be because I can’t change you, I can only change how I react to you.