Note: This post was put up at the same time as the one entitled, "Girlfriends Happy Hour." They are two interesting experiences both on the topic of friendship and trust and connection.
Confidential
I'm still getting lessons in how to rate relationships. I'm still trusting a relationship to be more of a friendship than it sometimes is. And that's okay.
I recognize it as an opportunity for growth and to not only learn from the experience but to learn about myself. It's good to keep discovering things about oneself at every age, I think.
Sometimes though what I do is I give a friend or a group of friends a little bit of power in my life by sharing a confidence that I don't share with just everybody. And I did that recently. Not so much as a gesture of friendship but out of a need to unburden a truth that was holding me back in a group of women.
I knew that it could be received in so many different ways and I asked their permission before I shared, requesting--before I shared--that they keep the conversation in complete confidence.
They all agreed to it. And I knew that even though they had all agreed that I was putting power in their hands by sharing this confidence which I intended should remain confidential. I recognized that it would be very easy to cause me irreparable damage if they chose not to keep the confidence.
But I had known them all for about a year and felt as though I knew who they were at least in terms of their ethics and their moral fiber. Even after only a few weeks I can see that the information that they have is hard for them not to quietly begin to leak out. I still hope that they will remain more upstanding than to literally "spill the beans," but I do know that my name has been dropped into conversations where it didn't belong.
I weighed the risks of telling them against the relief that I would feel from the burden of not sharing what I had kept for so long, and I made my choice. I took that risk. I had one beautiful sparkling shiny day with that group of women in a setting where I felt that the relief of having shared the confidence was definitely worth it.
Whoever they are to me now, perhaps they are not exactly friends. Perhaps I need to adjust my thinking and expectations a little bit. Actually, I've been adjusting my expectations since I first met them. They are a group unto themselves and-- at least for each other-- hold things close to the vest. Let me continue to hope that they honor their promise to me to hold this close to their vests as well.
I know that I have done what I always do when I'm building new friendships and relationships. I have shown up to help and be supportive and generous and cooperative. I have celebrated their wins and mourned losses along with them. I know that I hope that remembering our shared moments they find a recognition that although I'm not really one of them, I just as easily could have been.
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