Will you be my friend?

I've always found friendships a bit elusive. Something I desperately hunted after, yet could never quite keep hold of. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I'm sure there are quite a few I've yet to discover. This has been on my mind a bit lately. Relationships of all sort have always seemed to be at the heart of my problems - or at the heart of my hurt, at least. I've carried around the grief of lost friendships and ruined relationships every day of my life. It's heavy, and it taints everything else. Always wondering who's going to reject me next, and when.

I think I'm slowly starting to realise how to let go of that. Some hurts were bigger than others, and will take longer to heal. But I think I'm figuring this stuff out. That other people have their own hang ups and issues, and that not everything has to be about me. And I hope I'm figuring out how to be a better friend to people. To have more patience, to be less selfish, to be more self-reliant instead of trying to make people my crutch. I think that's a mistake I've made a lot over the years - mistaking emotional dependence for closeness. It's incredibly unfortunate that I've realised this too late for some of these friendships, but there you go.

I hope that I can salvage something back from some of them, however. There are a lot of people I've just drifted away from, lost contact with for no real reason. I'm getting back in touch with friends from university with whom I haven't had much contact over the last few years. I think maybe I found it difficult to adjust to our friendships changing as our lives took different paths, but I get that now. I get that we don't have to have the same friendship that we had when we lived together at university and spent 90% of our time together, but that I'd still rather have them in my life than not. I can only hope that they feel the same way about me.

There are other friendships that need repaired, or at least need a service. It's hard to know how to go about doing that sometimes, but I can only try. That's all I can do - be patient, and try.