A Fresh Start

I realized recently I had a toxic friendship.
I hate to use an Oprah-ism but it seems fitting.

I started noticing that I didn't like myself when I talked to this person.
I felt she was always criticizing and I didn't like how defensive I felt around her.
I'm not placing all the blame on her, of course. I'm much too sensitive and self-critical. She wasn't a bad person. I just think after knowing each other for so long, our personalities started to clash.
A few months ago, I thought to myself that I needed to back away from this friendship but it's hard when you talk to someone on a near daily basis. It becomes a habit.

But, last week, I finally gave in to my feelings about the criticism and when I did, she completely lost it. She went off on me and had some not so very nice things to say about me.
That's when I knew it was over. It was almost like she was waiting for me to do this. Maybe she had been waiting for an opportunity the same way I was.

It's hard to end a friendship on a bad note like that and it's hard to get use to not talking to her everyday but I've learned the right thing is rarely the easiest thing to do.

This weekend a very strange thing happened. I was walking the dogs and my mind started to wander. Suddenly, I found myself thinking about a friend that I lost touch with a year or two ago. She moved to the states from South Africa and we were really close. Then she had twins, got involved in motherhood, I got involved in my life and we just drifted apart. We didn't mean to, life just happens that way. But that night I thought about her and wondered about her life.

Sunday night, I had a message on MySpace from someone I didn't know. It was my long lost friend! She searched MySpace and found me!
We chatted for the longest time and promised to keep in touch.

Do you think that's the universe at work?