Heal Heaux- The Lifestyle & Wellness Blog

Did y’all have a mama who constantly reminded y’all that “everybody ain’t ya friend”? Mine sure did. I vividly remember being in middle school asking her if I could go over this “friend’s” house, could I go to the park with that “friend”, was it okay if these “friends” spent the night. More often than not, the answer was no. She would talk to me about her decision to keep me from them or them from me, and would always end with “you’ll be lucky to have two good friends in this life.” I’d made up in my mind that she was tripping. I’m like- that lady don’t know what she talking bout…I got more friends than I can count. I was wrong. I can definitely count them…on one hand.

The road to becoming a friendship mathematician was damn near treacherous. I treat my friends like family. They’re invited to all my family functions, we travel together, party together, grind together, celebrate the highs, and grieve the lows…together- like family. It isn’t just me though! My parents love my friends like they brought them into this world. My aunts, uncles, and cousins love my friends like their the nieces, nephews, and cousins. So imagine my disappointment when that energy wasn’t being reciprocated from the individuals I was dispersing it to. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why the people I would go to the end of the earth for would bitch and moan when it was time to go from one block to the next for me.

A couple weeks ago, one of my long term friendships came to an ugly end. While I was grieving the end of yet another friendship I thought would last forever, I had an epiphany. My friends that I loved so much, actually fucking hated me. Over the last 3-4 years the woman I’ve become has caused me to lose friendships with the women I thought contributed to this polished version of me. Being someone that struggled with self-worth, self-esteem, and self-love overall, I overcompensated in my friendships and intimate relationships. The people in my life benefited from my lack of boundaries and self respect. Starting therapy and making lifestyle changes saved my life. I started to feel better about myself and as a result started to attract better in all areas of my life. My quality of life improved tremendously.

Re-evaluating my relationship with myself caused me to concurrently re-evaluate my relationship with my peers. I starting questioning if people showed up for me in the ways and spaces I showed up for them. Did it make them bad friends or bad people if they didn’t? Did it make me a bad friend or person for having these expectations of them? What did it mean to be a “friend”? It was then I learned I needed to reclassify the people I had in my life. I realized I was having friend expectations of acquaintances and expected romantic gestures from platonic relationships. I was assigning the right work to the wrong classes of people.

Categorizing the relationships you’re involved in is an essential piece to establishing and maintaining peace in your life. I believed this transition would be seamless in my closet friendships because these were my girls! I’m talking 10 year plus friendships in some cases. But baaaaaby…. seamless my ass. Reciprocity had become a requirement for me and as a result, some of my closest friends started to tell me I was asking for too much. This was mind boggling for me because I never asked more of my friends than what they received from me. So, I put distance between us. These same friends that found issue with matching effort had no problem behaving in a manner that aligned with their distorted perception of “matching energy”. As a communicator though, I made space for conversations about how the friendships had changed and was receptive to feedback they had for me in ways I could be a better friend to them.

Believing that there’s nothing a conversation couldn’t fix, I believed the broken connections were mended. I continued working on me and the relationship I developed with myself was beautiful. But no matter how I showed up for my friends, there was always SOMETHING someone was humbugging about. Hanging out with them didn’t feel good anymore. I could never just relax and have fun like I used to. There was a huge energy shift but when I would ask what the problem was, there would be radio silence. I started to reflect on interactions I’d had with these friends since the start of my healing journey and the connection I made was stifling. I realized the more I loved myself, the more problems I started to experience in my friendships. When I was self-loathing and miserable my friends loved being around me. I was drowning in depression and struggled in silence. I attracted broken men and stayed in toxic relationships for years. I gave out so much love and sacrificed my peace for the pleasure of the people I had around me and everyone was cool with it. When I put boundaries in place, let go of my toxic attachments, and stopped looking for others to make me happy- my friends started dropping like flies. There was nothing poetic about the end of these friendships either, it was hurtful and heartbreaking…full of betrayal and animosity.

I don’t regret the friend that I was to these women. I grieve the version of me that had people pleasing tendencies and thought that being self-sacrificial was the highest expression of love. I fall more and more in love with the woman I am becoming and the life that I am creating for her. Any friend that can’t stand to see you glow and grow is no friend at all- that’s a hating heaux and she can go.