Being Vulnerable

People going thru huge life changes can make bad decisions or be more needy then they would like to admit or even realize.

Test for Huge Life Changes:
Quitting a job after 26 years. Check.
Losing all my business investments. Check.
Possibly saying goodbye to my 86 year old father. Check
Saying goodbye to my 14 year old dog. Check
Taking on 3 roommates after living alone for 24 years. Check
Leaving a 1600 sq ft home for a 44 ft sailboat, of which only 4 would be mine. Check
NOTE: I qualify for Huge Life Change. (H.L.C)

And so this weekend, I'm blaming HLC: I ruined a 23 year friendship.

I didn’t plan it or understand it, but suddenly “needy-girl” came out to smother my friend from Atlanta...
We’ve been thru the crazy Coliseum Days---the real Coliseum when Miltose was Hospitality Mayor of Beach Street. We’ve been thru the death of our friend, his x-Moto racing partner.
We’ve been thru watching the Conch drop in Key West for multi-New Year’s Eves; especially the Millennial. We’ve been thru countless stand-up Jet Ski days in the Ocean; when we rode so hard that you didn’t have a great weekend unless someone got bloody.

But free falling into an unknown future, I let fear lurk in my subconscious. Between foreclosure phone calls, medical issues, heart break, and the enormity of what needed to be done, it was hard to be strong. If going on “an Adventure” sounds easy then you don’t get it. Uprooting is not easy. But I never meant to dig in so deep. I always thought I would move around a lot but is it possible to go through life carefree like drift wood, or is that really more like a jack rabbit darting away from any sudden sign of trouble?

It’s always been, me holding onto me, or when I remember, me holding onto God. But my knees are weakening. The burden seems so heavy. Holding on to my friend felt like a bandage. Nobody wants to be a bandage, how thoughtless of me.

Ending a friendship takes one person, not two. It wasn’t my choice or my fault. Remember, I qualified for H.L.C. and different than a distraction, a bandage is a trusted protector.

No one speaks the truth but it is always there, between the lines: the unsaid truth was I slammed the door because I was ignored. He yelled at me because he wanted out.

And saying nothing says it all.