The Experience of Being Let Down by a Friend

     In this world we carry ourselves by our actions and thoughts. Our deeds represent us and our intentions represent what we wish could be. When we craft our lives with morality, kindness and a clear sense of courage and purpose the world is molded with congruence and strength. The dedication to our lives representing the highest ideal is a shared goal among our tribe. When you meet someone who listens to your quirks, idiosyncrasies and values and echoes back with cries of "Me, too!", relates and adds on you are truly bonding with one of your own tribe. The bond between friends is sacred from the emotional, spiritual rapport built when two minds combine. The synergy of friends is also a current of dual-flowing energy. When we meet with friends and exchange ideas, building upon them we listen, consider each other's perspective and then deliver our own value. The exchange of ideas is sacred not only for the sake of ideology but for the trust being built. Bridges are formed from commonalities and shared experiences, and then strengthened with trust, with revealing intimate truths. Intimacy is a closeness that comes from being open, showing vulnerability, showing trustworthiness. Trustworthiness in friends extends past not stealing or deceiving or harming one another. Fidelity amongst friends includes a sacred trust in protecting and holding your friend's shared world. Everything that friends talk about, do together, bond on is building an invisible but important sphere.

     I have had friends who used me for money, lied to me, tried using me to validate their lies to others, attempted to ride my coattails to achieve greater social status, pumped me up to my face to bring me around to their friends and then put me down, mooched off of me, stolen from me, claimed my traits, skills or even resources as their own, treated me like a servant, a toy, a piece of meat, turned their backs on me in time of need and used that time to sneer and chide. Everytime I was ever let down by a friend I held onto the invisible sphere we used to share. Every event that a friend ever fomented that made me feel stabbed, betrayed also involved me holding that shared palace in my chest and testing it against the offensive action, testing it against the wound. Many times I've tried to remain friends with those who have committed unforgiveable acts. Many times I've heard the phrase "I wouldn't ever talk to them after that. You got fucked over." and still tried to keep that invisible sphere sacred. Usually there was a healing period for me, after I realized that the sacred friendship palace was never that sacred to the frenemy to begin with. At this juncture there are two things a person can do. I've done alot of both. You can decide that you lost something, a part of yourself, a future hope, a friendship and feel hurt, hollow from that. Or you can decide that you now hold that invisible palace all to yourself, and everything it was filled wiith. A lot of it will feel artificial, will feel false, from the betrayal. You might wonder if the other person ever found your jokes to be funny to begin with, if they ever respected you at all. But what I've come to realize from only holding the sacred palace in my chest, letting it remain unaffected, letting the pain pass through me and realizing I'm still whole afterwards is that it doesn't matter. Frenemies don't matter. What's gained and grown cannot be lost when the seeds continue.

     The invisible chamber I hold in my chest these days is composed of every friendship I ever had, including those that went sour. Every seed, every conversation, every laugh might have been genuine or false, but every one affected me in some way. All of that energy is vital life-force and can be re-churned, re-used like left-overs into stew. Today the chamber I hold in my chest overflows with laughter because I don't care how disingenuous a former friend was. The experience of being let down by a friend is painful but liberating. It not only teaches us the importance of honesty and realness, kindness, reciprocity, but also allows us to take that sacred palace and share its contents with others, real friends. As Joan Jett said "You don't lose when you're losing friends."