Reversed Role

Yesterday I pushed someone away. It certainly didn't make me feel good, but it also made me feel relieved. Remember the story when my closest friends felt overwhelmed by my long emails that I wrote so often when I first moved to Finland? I leaned on them for support too much, and in the end they got burnt out. One of them told me point blank that she couldn't spare more time for me due to her life schedule. Only then I fully realized that I had been having too high expectation of them.

Well, that was what I felt about that friend whom I pushed away (let's call her Uni). She isn't one of my closest friends, but she's also a close friend. Since I have less time for myself and to do anything else after my full-time course started, I have less tolerance for anything that ruins my mood.

I know that Uni has had problems lately, but when I come back from the course, I'm tired already and it just ruins my mood to read her complaints again and again and again. It's fine to hear a complaint once, but if you're tired and you just want to relax and you read it again and again and again in different ways...after a while you get burnt out. In the end I didn't even want to read her messages anymore, let alone replied them. However, I didn't resort to not reading and not replying. I resorted to explaining to her about my situation.

I knew it would hurt like hell, just like what happened to me when one of my closest friends told me point blank about the facts of life. I HOPE she'll understand me, though right now she must be SO disappointed at me. She replied briefly to my explanation, saying, "I know you're busy right now and that you have your own life. I'm sorry to have shared my complaints with you. I'm not going to bother you anymore."

Sigh...it's not that I don't want to hear her life story, but if I keep on hearing bad news, bad news, bad news, then in the end I don't know anymore what I have to say to support her. I know the situation she's facing now sucks BIG TIME, but then again when you've done EVERYTHING you can and still you can't change it, all you can do is either find another way out or just wait until the door is open. She keeps on wanting to change everything and make it faster...she keeps on asking me to analyze, too. It's draining me out whenever I read about her messages and all I see is problem, problem, problem...

Oh well...I asked Arttu if he thought I was cruel by doing this to her and he said no. Well, one thing for sure is that now I understand MUCH better what my close friend felt when she pushed me away. And I'm glad to say that now I no longer bombard them with emails he he he he...