Blog entry for:

responsibilities in friendship? what kind of happy horseshit is this? i do not have to be anyone or anything to be a friend and i certainly do not have to take any responsibility for my actions, either i am or i am not a friend, period!
well that used to be my first reaction when someone talked about what i needed to do when i was involved in the relationship known as friendship it was and still is one of the most confusing of the ‘ships,;&rsquo after all it seems like the least likely to cause chaos and strife in my life but seems to be the one i spend most of my efforts on. i mean here is a relationship that i can always walk away from, with a minimum of fuss and bother and yet i find myself doing what i need to do to maintain these relationships. the days of me ‘ex’ing people out of my life is over, and for that i am grateful, but with this change in my attitude comes a whole bunch of new stuff that i was totally unprepared for, stuff like intimacy, caring, equality, and most of all, responsibility for my behaviors. it is that last condition that has always seemed the most heinous to me, no matter how and when it is being applied, after all, i am an human and an addict and as such i am less than perfect, so i just need to be automagically forgiven when i do something wrong IF you want to remain my friend! so one can see how easy it is for me to shift blame and responsibility to someone else. that has always been the case, or at least un til i decided to come to recovery and actually do the work that growing-up in recovery entails. so here i sit this morning pondering the nature of my actions, reactions and behaviors on my current set of relationships, and i have come to realize that if i want to have friends (and i do) then i must do the work necessary to maintain those relationships, including but not limited to, making amends for those times when as a human i cause harm and forgiving my friends when they seek to make amends for their behavior. BUT my focus needs to remain on what i can do to be a better friend and my behaviors and allow them to do for themselves what i find is necessary to do for myself, which take responsibility for my actions in all of my affairs, including those that involve my friends. not too much to ask of myself this morning, is it?

∞ DT ∞