ask not what you can

Relationships are complicated. There was a time when my opinions about people and what to do with them were informed by a polarized view of the world. Things, they was much easier back then. The longer I interact with human beings, the more gray area there is. People are motivated by all kinds of things and for just as many reasons. I like to think I don't have any hidden agendas, that I am easy to read, that my motives are clear, that I am loyal and honest, and that I give of myself as much as I get in relationships. I am probably wrong about these things to some extent, or at the very least, in the eyes of some people. I'm getting to a place where I am reasonably comfortable with my vulnerability. I've given it, perhaps too freely, to people who lied to me about themselves and blamed me for how they felt about it, to people who hold tightly to double standards, and also to people who are more interested in what other people can do for them instead of how they can contribute to any given scenario. I need to have better boundaries.
I'm grateful to be blessed with more than one or two really good friends--the kind who know me forever, the kind who don't much care it's been way too long since we talked or hung out, we just pick right up where we left off. I thrive on that kind of simple love, the kind that doesn't keep score, punish me for taking care of myself, or fail to ask me, at least once in awhile, how are you, and how is your life, and if you aren't around much, why not?
I have found myself in a situation in which I have given much more than I was really interested in giving, but I did it anyway, and now I'm unhappy about it. I've been distancing myself from it for many weeks. My distance, or absence, is either unnoticed or simply not commented upon. The funny thing is, I used to talk to this person every day. Now not so much. She still doesn't ask me how I am, even when days go by between times when we talk. For awhile I was hurt by this, but now I am just used to it, and I wonder sometimes, how long it will take for the days between the times we talk to stretch out into months, and if it will matter to either of us. Maybe it was a lesson for me, this being a friend to her, about my own boundaries. The lesson I learned? Make friends with people who are more interested in you than in what you can do for them. Amen.