Your Absence is Required

Your Absence is Required

You want to try to fix it.

You’ve said sorry or maybe you need to.

You think doing something is better than doing nothing.

Sometimes it is the ‘nothing’ that turns out to be the best solution to the problem.

Because sometimes your absence is more powerful than your presence.

It may surprise you that this is an option but if your presence were making it hard for someone why would you not gift them with your absence?

I don’t mean storming out in a fit of temper, I mean truly allowing them the time and space to find their own solution to the problem.

If they want to reconnect at some point let it be because they have chosen to, not out of fear that the relationship will be lost or broken by the absence of the other.

True healthy friendships do not require so much tending; they exist from choice not obligation. If they move into obligation it is no longer healthy or true.

I do not want a friend who feels obligated to be my friend. I want to spend my time and energy with someone who “chooses’ to be my friend freely and honestly.

If that is not present then let them go.

Just let…them…go…

I said something once that hurt someone I cared about. I apologized and I did what I knew to do to try to change how she felt about me after the hurting.

It didn’t work.

As I listened to her spew poison and pain in my ear over the phone I realized that if I wanted this to be resolved that I would have to do something I just could not do.

I would have to believe her version of who I am.

I found I could not do this and still love who I am. I could not believe her opinion of me and still believe in me.

And so I allowed my absence to be the solution.

It still is.