Around the corner from my coastal abode sits a beautiful Oak tree so old and majestic that just standing under it is said to preserve your friendships for LIFE. It is called The Friendship Tree and it resides on USM’s Gulf Coast campus. The tree holds power over your friendships that they will be ever lasting if stood under. Well, I have taken a few (more than a few) there and can attest that most of those relationships seem to have died off as though the branches can’t withstand the storms life has thrown at us. No matter how I tend to it, pray maybe the roots will spring up through the dirtiness of life, it does not seem to happen. And if I have learned enough about gardening over the last couple of years is that one shouldn’t always be the one tending to them…in other words it isn’t up to me to always nurture the growth of our tree. The Garden of Friendship takes the both of us, and sometimes you need to be the arborist too. At some point YOU are accountable for our friendship too, YOU hold gardening tools too.
About 3 months before my 45th birthday I felt the loss of some major friends (a whole community actually) without fully understanding why. Once again, the ghosting was setting up its haunts leaving us no longer able to reach out over the silliest of things or seriousness either. I accepted this because I had grown tired of the cycle. I craved change to root (roots are always going to be a thing with me) and calm (I am ALWAYS going to seek a calm environment). So I took the deafening silence from them and dealt. This led to the branches of my oak tree to weaken. I spent my birthday focused on wellness and who was actually still standing among my health changes.
But within weeks of that soup and silly celebration (because that is all I did that birthday, made soup and sought laughter), I lost yet another friend I thought was too dear to really lose (and had truly moved beyond mundane bullshit). Sadly, their idea of our friendship and mine didn’t align and they ghosted me as well.
Not even a month from that date did I come to lose the closest of close loves. After the worst night of my drinking life (I have NOT been drunk since that St. Paddy’s and I came the closest I had ever come to death) they ghosted me too, most likely out of anger. To be honest, I am not really sure. I spent the year trying to understand why my yard work on our relationship didn’t work. Even to the point of carrying around Rose Quartz for a healing in the love (I still carry it around), getting my cards read, MAJOR walking and sitting in prayer with it, misguided therapy…. trust I have done some work on the spirit to reconcile, understand, take blame, and all the whatevers in it to move forward in life only holding sunshine rays on the branches remaining.
I have tried over the year to reconnect with some and failed miserably. And some I just stopped trying all together. I grew tired of those that only came over for reasons that served them. Letting go began to grow another branch of my tree that allowed for a lighter heart in things. I spent a good bit of my 45th year letting go. Maybe I let go too harshly but honestly, I just can’t go round and round with the same bullshit. Especially if you are holding onto dishonest things you think I should be honest in. I am and always will be someone who accepts change, embraces change, and will absolutely apply change. Perhaps this pissed people off. I don’t know. I don’t care anymore. No one ever comes and says to my face what their issue is….just behind my back. I have no room in my life for that sort of chatter.
During all those ghosting of friends who claimed such professing heart toward me, I was actually going through some scary health things. Not even the two I celebrated with last year on my birthday knew the extent of testing that was happening or how I was fighting hard some serious diagnoses all because they couldn’t figure me out. I racked up debt, had nerves set on fire, mri of my brain…I could go on it was that fucking heavy. And no, I can’t tell ya the results because in all that my doctor moved yet fucking again setting me off in another direction. By the Summer I was in menopause with even fewer women in my life to offer any sort of support in how to navigate it. I continue to navigate the retched happenings to my womanhood without much of a female friend support. And that pisses me off on a whole different level that will bring about a different blog…but during Summer I decided to go full steam ahead with the support system that was holding my hand still and walk completely away from the medical field. I took control of my diabetes, anxieties, and anything else that comes this way with an alternative way approach in health. I am no long on any pharmaceuticals for diabetes, high blood pressure, migraines…supported by movement, diet, acupuncture, and vitamins. I continue to aggressively work towards an optimum health. A continued education…
I have slowly accepted where lightening struck part of my oak tree in life, branches fell to the ground for the bonfire, others hang on, and some most definitely need cutting still. Because among all that change one has to shift to a place of acceptance in order to allow new growth in. I can’t make any of YOU be my friend again. I don’t want some to be my friend again. My life isn’t that lonely. I want to surround myself with people who don’t make relationships so fucking hard. Low maintenance and mindfulness is where I am. I can no longer be mindful of most when they don’t, nor have they been mindful of me. I don’t want to hear words of ‘I am sorry’ or ‘I love you so’ when they hold no merit the actions behind most words have left my tree to look haunted. I don’t fucking care for that at all. I love a good ghost hunt but you don’t need to be bringing rattling chains around to scare my soul. I would rather hash our shit out and move on, or bury the manure in the soil to allow my tree to grow instead of stinking it up…
The spirit is truly a desert girl at heart but over the years has come to love living in the south, come to understand ALL the trees and the importance of an oak tree standing in your front yard. Oak trees are resilient. Years ago a friend (and yes, she is still very dear and near in my heart, and yes, we still hold each in our prayers to keep in touch) took me to a spot that on the coast that brought her great solace. As we drove up to it all you see is massive branches protruding from this large trunk. It was an oak tree. She came there to think. At first I really didn’t get it. I was honored enough to be shown but I wasn’t exactly letting myself root to any idea that trees would be my friend or years from then be using them as a metaphor. I collect rocks to hold roots to the desert and my yardio is full of them so I can walk barefoot on it to feel grounded…I was not a tree girl. Now I get it. Nature provides that sort of guide. She was right to find herself sitting there staring at it, searching it. Druids believed that the oak held all the knowing often seeking its guidance. It was the teacher, the priest, judgment of living.
It is through my newly found hobby of gardening that everything we do in life reverts back to nature and where your lessons to navigate life lie.
In my 46th year (as of this past Sunday) I am going into holding onto branches dearly, respectfully, and mindfully. I sit under it with full heart in what is to come my way. I am not sad (only a select few will my eyes still tear up over). I hold no sorrow. I only hold light and love to wish one well. I pray laughter is huge in their lives as it was during the days our giggles spewed out together. I carry around hope some would just ring the doorbell, lay it the fuck down. But most importantly I trim the limbs back that allow for new.
There is a Chinese Proverb that goes like this;
THE BEST TIME TO PLANT A TREE WAS 20 YEARS AGO. THE SECOND BEST TIME IS NOW.
The Ramblings of an Aging Woman... 