Choosing to celebrate the life of passed loved ones has me thinking about how I also celebrate past friendships.
I am a serial monogamist when it comes to friendship. Okay, that's an overstatement, but I do have one very close friend at a time and I have had many falling outs resulting from moving away from depth in those friendships. Generally speaking, the falling outs are epic in emotional scale (I love hard) but extraordinarily low in drama. After the most recent, my bitter ex-friend accused me of building walls that never come back down. They meant they believe I am unwilling to reconcile. With this friend, I am unwilling to reconcile. I have extremely good reason, though. This individual tried to bankrupt me out of jealousy. Seriously. Relationship over.
With other friends, I have worked hard to find a post-bestie balance. Sometimes the relationship is not recoverable (see above), but more often it is. In fact, the above is the only relationship I never intend to recover despite that I built it on love, compassion and open communication. It died the moment my friend chose to see me as an enemy instead of speaking to me with the same respect I afforded them during the week long war they waged on my heart.
And yet - I will still remember and celebrate the good times.
We all fall off the wagon. The value of our relationships can be carried forward and reinvested in the currency of positivity. Good is often obscured by bad, but it is not erased. With this friend, I choose to focus less on the demise of our trust and more on the waves we made together in the friendship pool. I am happier for it.