This summer, I made a conscience decision to change some things in my life. But it wasn't a decision like "drink more water" or "be nicer at work" it was a deep, multi-layer decision that affected many layers of my life. The decision was quite personal, not announced to anyone - even my husband and was something like this:
1. Stop doing the same thing every weekend with the same people.
2. Stop drinking so much. (see #1)
3. When I do go out with friends, get home at a respectable hour. (see #2)
4. Spend more time at home. (see #3)
5. Find things to do with people I like that don't involve drinking heavily or eating heavily. (see #1)
6. Live with health and fitness in my life.
By choosing to do (or not do) these 6 things, I have single-handedly alienated most of my friends. And this weekend when I realized that my friends were moving on without me, I cried. A lot. I thought, "Why don't I have any friends anymore? Why doesn't anyone call me? Why are all of my friends out with each other and not with us?"
And after I had my pity party, I realized that over the course of the last 2 months, I have effectively reaped what I had sown.
My friends didn't stop drinking or staying out until 2am - I did. My friends were still doing all the same things we've always done. And I suppose when you tell someone "no" enough, they stop asking.
The friend part of my life was not bringing me joy any longer, in fact, aside from not bringing me joy, it was actually bringing me angst. And I felt it was not a good example to set for my children who were getting to the age that would ask ME "What time did you come home last night?" And I felt some of these "friendships" had turned rather poisonous. Leading me to step away.
What is hard about this choice is realizing that not everybody is making the same life changing choice as me. If the analogy of walking down life's path together is accurate, what I have found is that when I took that sharp right turn, no one was running after me asking me to come back OR if they could join me.
New friends seem about as possible as driving to the moon and back. But I know, if I keep moving forward, believing in my choices, new friends (or maybe old friends with new intentions) will surface. I suppose I just need to keep walking.
