tiny truths

deciding to like her

I have a friend I’ve known for a million years. I have never considered her a friend in anything but the practical sense that we spend a lot of time together and we have the same friends, so we are friends by association.

I didn’t pick her. I don’t like her. But here we are, a million years later, still together. It’s time to start getting this right.

1. She’s a human being.
2. She never forgets a birthday.
3. She doesn’t realize how self-absorbed she is, she was raised that way.
4. There have been moments wherein my self-absorption has blown her self-absorption out of the water.
5. My issues with her have been noted, with understanding but also with curiosity, by our mutual friends: “This is the only person I’ve ever seen get under your skin.”
6. I’m not helping anyone, and only hurting myself, with my feelings of aversion toward her.
7. I’m tired of this opinion, I think I’ve outgrown it.
8. I can still maintain boundaries and reasonable expectations for what our relationship will be.
9. I don’t want to be someone who doesn’t like someone else.
10. She’s great with kids.

And so, I hereby vow to like her. To first, keep my mouth shut, and then to retrain my thoughts toward kindness and love. To put my petty judgments aside and look for wonderfulness.

Honestly, it can’t possibly be more work than it has been to dislike her for all these years.

Onward.