I hold onto people. I have had the same friends my entire life.

I am so happy to say that the people I grew up with continue to grow up with me.

It’s pretty special

They let me be me. They do not judge me on a moment or day. They do not judge me one a week or a month. They do not judge me on a year or even a divorce.

In addition, I have been even more blessed.

I have made friends along the way. The kind of friends who make me feel like my childhood friends. They let me be me. They do not judge me on a moment or a day. They do not judge me on a week or a month. They do not judge me on a year or even a divorce.

They make me feel beautiful even when I am ugly

I know all people in transition feel loss and that divorce exaggerates this.

I also know that I am an extreme. I do not hang out with two people I went to high school with. I hang out with two times the people.

I want to walk in life as if it were still yesterday.

I want to feel safe. I want all my people.

Imagine my surprise, when I awoke amongst unimaginable pain to find some of my people gone.

I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t understand it and I had never met it before. I had grown up with people who had an immense tolerance for human imperfection. Who recognized vulnerability as a strength. Who viewed hardship as what we all fear but know will come our way.

I grew up with love.

I could try to explain it differently only that’s what it truly was. You don’t abandon people that you love. You don’t tell them that you have had enough or that you find them a certain way. When you love people you find them beautiful despite their ugly.

Because I grew up holding onto people it made it nearly impossible for me to let go of people.

But I had to.

I had to let go of the people who made me feel even uglier when I myself, knew I was ugly.

I had to hold onto the people who made me miraculously feel beautiful despite my ugly.

They were the people who…

– Did not judge me for turning into someone less than who I was – They were cheering me from the sidelines and tossing me water and a towel.

– Did not say I was no longer happy and fun and beg for the old me – Instead, they told me stories of who I was because they realized I had forgotten.

– Did not say I was stuck or unforgiving or repeating myself – Instead, they reminded me how many times they had begged me to leave only I thought I could fix anything and they knew I would leave no one.

And most importantly, from a girl who knew the loss of her father at a young age and then unbearably her husband as well, and the catastrophic loss of divorce –

They NEVER left me..

They still saw me.

They still believed I was beautiful despite my ugly.

They loved me when I showed the worst of me.

The stood by me when others walked away.

They never made me explain.

They never complicated the pain of loss – of divorce.

They just somehow, miraculously called me beautiful despite my ugly.

This is for my friends who when I found it so difficult to love myself made me believe I was still loveable.

Who grabbed a mirror to remind me that I was beautiful despite my ugly.

To the friends that remind me that I was so incredibly blessed…

Because I grew up with love.

I still wonder though. I still
think about them now and then. I wonder if now that I once again meet their
expectations if they wish we could share a moment. Then I remind myself that
when I was exactly who they needed me to be they were present and when I failed
to be that because life sent me forward through struggles they had no need for
me. Then I can love them as I always did AND I can let them go.
I wasn’t weak. I wasn’t a doormat. I just wasted a lot if time pleading with
someone to care and respect what was important to me and being too naive to
realize that if you have to have that conversation or lack thereof that they
never will.