There is No Replacement

Vulnerable post right here 😬. This is something hard to admit but its the reality. I’m not a perfect person and I have issues.

There’s something special about having a sister as a best friend. She was only a year older than me, we got married 3 months apart from each other, and had kids at almost the same time. She loved my kids like her own and I loved hers like mine. She was the first to volunteer to help me with anything I needed and we talked to each other about everything. We had our differences and would argue at times, but would quickly let the differences go and end on good terms.

And after I lost that, I think I subconsciously tried to find a replacement. Someone to fill in the space, to be that best friend. This may not be true for everyone, and maybe this issue of mine needs to be dealt with, but I NEED to have another female as a friend. Someone I can talk to about anything and everything. I’ve tried telling myself that there’s people out there that don’t have that and they’re fine. I’ve tried convincing myself that I don’t need to always tell someone else what I’m going through, I can just talk to God and that should be enough. But still, I yearned for “that friend”.

I realized this way later, but when I felt like I found the one, the person that I could be comfortable with and totally be myself around, I tried my hardest to make it into something special. I gave it my all. I put in 100%. And when I wouldn’t get the same thing back, I’d be dissappointed, but then, I’d quickly let that go and just continue to give it my all. I held on to all the moments that the friend made me feel that they felt about me the same way I felt about them.

**Sidenote: I lost my sister during the time I had 3 babies under 3, hubby worked nightshifts, and I had almost no other adult interactions. So I was desperate.

As time went by, as I mentally matured, I began to realize that people do not have the same story as I do. That they are not as desparate to have me as their friend as I was to have them. That I could not, and it wasn’t fair for me to, put that type of pressure on them to provide for me what I needed.

But of course, even after becoming aware of this (old habits are hard to break, and I wasn’t, all of a sudden, this new, different, stable person), I’ve added multiple people into this zone, and continued to be somewhat pushy. Not intentionally or in a harsh manner, but I continued to treat these friends the way I wanted to be treated, and be the type of friend that I wanted them to be towards me. I was doing all the good things: going out of my way to help, being super supportive, giving my time and energy (and I absolutely do not regret any of it). And not that anyone was mean, they are great, and they genuinely care about me, they are helpful and supportive, but when, at times, I felt like they weren’t making me a priority, the way I priorized them, I would get dissappointed and hurt and that’s just not right and not fair.

I’m a mess, and a work in progress, and I really feel like if my sister was still here, I wouldn’t be in this situation right now. But then, I might also not have had the friends that I have right now, or learned the lessons that I’ve learned. I don’t know what’s the better option, but I just miss my sister and she is definitely irreplaceable.