broken bulbs

A couple of weeks ago, I was unfriended by someone on facebook.

I know breaking news.

It was by a woman who I honestly thought I was helping but instead of helping I unknowingly caught her, rather publicly, in a lie.  Had I known she wasn't being truthful or exaggerating or whatever it was, I would have left it alone- as I had many times before. 

I didn't know enough about the subject to know any differently about it. I thought I was solving a problem she told me she was having. A problem I thought I was in a position to help her with.

  
I had always known she had a bit of a habit of flying off the handle in irrational ways. She had even directed some of her rashness towards me once; later apologizing. 

There were more red flags but I figured at the core, this single mom, was simply lonely and didn't know how to direct herself.  I sympathized with her.  I felt elected to help her which in turn I thought would help us all.   

I believed it was a small cost to me personally to be friends. I ignored her behaviors as she burned bridges all around us. I focused on what we still had/have in common, what I like about her- we both love our daughters. 

At times it was hard to navigate through her negativity.  Hard to ignore the selfishness of her comments.  Hard to find ways to redirect her.  Hard to be nice as she attempted to bully her way through conversations with little to no regard for my feelings or beliefs. 

When a friend informed me that the woman had unfriended me, at first I was relieved. It's for the best. I no longer have to keep turning the other cheek.  

Although, admittedly even now I would have liked to have had the chance to tell her I was sorry.  Had I known the "circumstances" I wouldn't have outed her like that. 

What's done is done.  Or at least that's what I thought...

A week or so later, when I saw by a little blue thumbs up on a post I made that I didn't lose the relationship between a friend the woman and I had in common I found myself ecstatic!  Had I lost my connection to her and her sweet family it would have hurt my heart. I actually I had thought it had happened. I was so pleased to be mistaken.

My reaction to the value I placed on that friendship and why I valued that type of relationship so much put the whole thing in perspective for me.

The woman who unfriended me wasn't the one in the wrong- I was. I never should have stood by her beyond the first time she showed her true colors. I called myself a peacemaker but what I was, was complicit. 

This post isn't about revenge.  It isn't about the pettiness of grown woman friending and unfriending each other on social media sites like middle-schoolers. Wanting nothing to do with me she will never see it. And in fact, it isn't about that woman at all.  

This post is an apology to my daughter- to all our daughters.

In the same set of circumstances I would expected my child to have walked away from the very start. I would have expected her to take a stand on the side of integrity no matter how uncomfortable.  Something I failed to do in the name of politeness and peace. 

We moms are the examples. I wanted the circle of moms, despite our differences to shine our lights out into the world all together. I wanted us to light the way for our daughters. Our brightness giving them a whole world of light to explore. A world without dark corners. 

What I didn't consider was in trying to stand with someone casting shadows was that my own light would be directed away from where it should have been.  I was dimming the path ahead by not facing forward.

I find it hard not to forgive people.  I find it hard to not empathize, justify, and relate.  I truly hope unfriending me has made her life better.  Obviously, I wasn't a good friend to her.  She deserves better.  I hope she got the justice she was seeking. 

I know I got just what I deserved- a chance to be a better person than the one I was yesterday.  A chance to remove a broken blub from my string of lights.