My momma told me when I was a little girl that life wasn’t fair. The sooner I could figure that out the happier I would be.

This week has brought me back to that statement again. Also, the delicate balance of family, relationships, forgiveness, conflicts, stubbornness, and a hundred different things. I think mourning is a very important, often overlooked step in life’s processes.

Story: brothers grow up with an age gap and vastly different personalities. As life goes on, brothers recognize (or don’t) their differences, but enjoy spending time together. They have common interests. Younger brother is involved in his nieces and nephew’s lives. It isn’t paradise, but family life is good. Younger brother gets married and doesn’t think it is cool to hang out with his family anymore. Divorce happens, family is back. Another marriage and a child. Nieces and nephew grow up, older brother divorces. Harsh words are said between brothers and wife. Time passes and older brother, nieces, and nephew still make an effort to contact younger brother, which he ignores. This situation starts consuming the whole family. Younger brother has a heart attack, the family shows up at the hospital. Younger brother’s wife is barely civil. Days at the hospital roll by as younger brother is sedated to heal. Older brother is consumed and conflicted.

Families are tricky. At least mine is and the one I speak of above in the simplest terms is also. I am living through a sister-in-law that doesn’t like our family. This barely bothers me anymore. Twenty-five years ago, my brother made choices and it wasn’t what my side of the family was hoping for. This consumed family conversations, my heart, and my thoughts for years. Truth is, we wanted life to be fair….it wasn’t. We still had my brother but in a different way. We still have him now in limited capacity. My sister-in-law didn’t go to my daughter’s wedding or her own daughter’s graduation party (from high school or college). We all have choices, and for years, I was letting someone else’s choices cause me mental and emotional energy drain. I finally put my foot down and said, “I’m done giving this woman power. I refuse to keep beating the same dead horse over and over. I’m done talking about it.” It went over like a lead balloon when I said this to my family. My sister-in-law and brother are not bad people, they make choices different than mine. They are who they are. My kids deal with it on their own. I see and talk to my brother when I can and I always send best wishes to his wife. I feel much freer and easy about it these days.

There have been countless situations where I got stubborn and refused to let things go. I was right, they were wrong, this isn’t fair, why did they do this! Why can’t they just admit how wrong they were/are and ask for forgiveness? This is so sinister….if I hold on to this hurt, anger, righteousness, they will pay! What!!!???? Do you think they care at all? Do you think they know how it is tearing me up? Maybe, but what is it doing to them? NOTHING! We are so self-centered.

Here is what I know to be true….I am sad things aren’t the way I would want them to be. Is it my fault or their fault? Maybe nobody’s fault? Once I can recognize this I need to mourn it. Cry, get angry, cut my hair, wear black! Mourn the picture of the way I wanted it to be. I may not fully accept the way it is right now, but mourning it is a good start. Once the old picture is dead to me, I can look at the situation with an open heart and fresh eyes. So what my sister-in-law doesn’t like any of us! So what she chooses not to attend amazing family events! Do I care anymore? No! I have compassion on my brother, and even her for that matter. I don’t know what his life looks like on the inside. It probably isn’t very fun. Then, my life goes on.

News flash, drinking poison doesn’t kill them! Mourning the way we wanted things to be and forgiving all the “wrongdoing” (if it actually was wrong), takes away the poison. That poison was only destroying my life, not theirs. Beating the dead horse gets old…and stinky. We don’t forgive to let the other person off the hook, we do it so we can heal.

Back to the story of the brothers. When the older brother mourns the loss of the way he wanted his brother’s story to go, he will be open to the way it exists now. Let go of the dead horse. Forgive the younger brother’s choices, mourn him, because he may never come back into his life. Once he gives him up he can just say, “that’s who/how my younger brother is”. Mourn, forgive, accept. We don’t have to wait until someone dies to mourn them!

Later that week, enter another past boyfriend. He messages me and wants to hang out, he wants to see me, and tells me he misses me. I tell him my time is at a premium and that I don’t see us getting together anytime soon. The thing is, when he contacts me, I don’t feel excited or happy about seeing him. I feel like it is a lot of work, I am obligated because I am “nice”,  I have to dodge all his claims about missing me, and we really didn’t part on happy terms anyway. I get done putting him off and he sends me a friend request. Again, I let this sit.

During the days that follow I read not one, but two different articles and blog posts about weeding out so called friends. Here are the messages I received from my readings:

• Do these relationships serve me? For these two, the answer was an easy NO. They have no bearing on my life as I know it now. I have to go out of my way to see them and while I cared for these people at one time, I don’t really care now.
• How much room do these relationships take from me? While I am looking at a small time commitment to keep these relationships, there is a larger mental commitment that goes along with continuing to engage them. Each time I hear from them I am sucked back to where I was before and who I was. I am not that person anymore (thank God!).
• Do I want these people to stay in my life? I have zero reason to keep these people in my life. I don’t want to expand or nurture the relationships. Is this harsh? It sounds like it, but some people nip these off as soon as a break up happens. Why didn’t I do that when things ended? Right, I’m that nice, giving, doormat woman…..no more.
• Do these people really care about me and where I am going in life? In all my dealings with these men, rarely have either of them encouraged me to be better, to grow, to find who I am, and/or to help me in any of these areas. I feel like I am the lifeguard and they are the ones slowly drowning. When they make contact, I feel like they are trying to rescue themselves and in those moments, they are drowning me to save themselves.
• Have I outgrown these relationships? Yes, I have outgrown these people and the relationships they represent. I am so grateful I am past where I was when I had them in my life.
• Am I uplifted and excited seeing these people or do I feel obligated and heavy? With both of them I feel guilty and heavy because my life is so good now. I can barely talk about how beautiful things are and how blessed I feel. One of them throws it back in my face, the other quietly reminds me that I could have taken him along in my beautiful life. Nothing like a little more guilt to make a person feel happy. Uggg.
• Do I want my past to follow me to where I am now? My past is always with me. It has grown me into the person I am now. Do I want to be reminded of the hard stuff, the people that were damaged, angry, and wanted me to stay in those places with them? Not for one minute! I really don’t want to even remember those times. I made choices then I would not make now, so why revisit?

To sum it up, I want to free up all the room in my life I can for the good stuff. I want to find my person, my soulmate, my beloved. I want to have friends that feed me the deep, heartfelt nurishment I need to grow. I want people to push me, challenge me, and expand without making me wrong or disrespect my ideas and life. I want the kind of connection that makes me feel alive! I want to like who I am when I am with these people. These people are easy to fall in love with.

What did I do with these two friend requests? I deleted them both. One is still after me and this will be my message to him:

R, while I appreciate you reaching out I cannot continue to engage with you. I have taken a hard look at where I have been and where I am going. As far as friendship, I don’t feel the effort has been made to right things. There is money owed to me, broken furniture, many of my items left behind. Help with my medical bills after our child was miscarried was not offered. I was treated with disrespect and indifference. Even when I have reached out for your help, I found none. This isn’t how friends treat each other. If you want to right any of these things, so be it. If not, I wish you the best in life along your journey.

I look back and wonder why I let this go so long. In the beginning it was because we worked together. Take note, there are many reasons not to date people you work with! He doesn’t contact me all the time but it is rough when he does. The time finally came to step up and have the difficult conversation.

UPDATE: I sent the above message without any expectations. An hour later he had responded and later he transferred some money into my bank account. He said he had been selfish. We exchanged a couple messages. I think he “got it” this time. I thanked him and this will probably wrap up my past with him.