If You're Anything Like Me...

you are driven. Headstrong. Sensitive. Determined. If you're anything like me, you don't like taking no for an answer. If you're anything like me, you'll do whatever it takes, you'll go out of your way for the people you love-even if those same feelings aren't returned. Call it being a cancer, call it being a girl, I just call it being me. I'm a pusher-I push my feelings onto others and expect them to give me the same kind of push back. I think I've gotten to caught up in my novels and tv shows-I've always dreamed of being the girl that saves the boy whose lost his way, of falling in love with the guy I've known since I was six, and of course having the three best friends that I could always count on and anywhere you'd turn people would whisper out of envy because a friendship like ours was one in a million.

But recently, a facebook message from a supposed guy "best friend" completely shattered all my what now seem like naive standards for life. In my opinion, in order for a friendship to work you need to talk constantly-whether its keeping an ongoing message, email, skype, msn whatever. & somehow I believed everyone around me had these same expectation of friendships. So when my supposed best friend stops talking to me for months at a time (he currently lives in a different hemisphere, timezone, continent etc), I of course jump to the worst conclusions possible-hes upset with me, hes depressed, somethings going wrong with school etc. & thats when I start to push and what I view as being a good friend morphs into something close to obsession. The need to be that friend who, despite how hard you push, will always be there for you no matter what. I've done this with him so many times and every time when he doesn't reciprocate, I'll get mad, delete him off of facebook, swear to high hell I'm done and two days later he'll chase after me and things will be better-a sort of bandaid if you will. Yet this routine game of cat and mouse cut me when he didn't chase after me. Instead he exposed my weaknesses and said every possible honest thing upfront and to my face. And to be honest? It hurt. Like hell. And I'm not sure if I've recovered from it or not. His words read like a broken record, constantly reading themselves aloud in my mind over and over and over. How could the one person I know best and who knows be best say those kinds of things to me? How could he hurt me so badly when he knew about everything I had overcome.

Every day since then has been me trying to come to terms with his words. "Pathetically weak" I may be, but I'm trying to learn to stand on my own and to unclinch if you will and give people their space. I'm trying to learn how to not need my friends as much as I do and how to not force myself on them when they're hurting. But its hard you know? We all want to be the one to save somebody but sometimes we just have to learn how to walk away.

"Here I am, and I stand so tall-just the way I'm supposed to be"
-V