Tea for One

Saturday is a blessing in disguise.  My first thoughts of Saturdays were filled with anxiety and doubt.  The only day I have to myself to spend doing what I love was daunting.  I spend the weeks saying to myself “Saturday, I will write!  I will go to a quiet, darling park filled with blooms and rustling trees and I will let myself go.”  Saturday nears closer and the anxiety sets in.  “There is always next Saturday.”  Afraid I will not be up to what I want to achieve I give in and let Saturdays win.  Saturdays have no idea that they are in competition with my self esteem and that they are in the lead.  

This Saturday is different.  Spent with an old friend, (years known, not age).  A birthday lunch was a treat for us because of our lack of keeping in touch.  Talks over tea and avocado sandwiches followed by antiquing was definitely my kind of Saturday afternoon, or any afternoon for that matter.  We shared stories of what was happening in our lives that the other was missing and said congrats on the new lives we were building.  Sadly, those new lives were being built without the other.  

A decade of laughs, tears, smiles, and frowns boiled down to a short lunch of ‘catch-up’.  We spent much of that decade together, classes together, lunches and dinners together, proms and graduation, breakups and makeups, all together.  Leaving that lunch, I held back emotions that have been weighing heavy on my heart.  Heaviness of is this what is left of our friendship, a birthday lunch?  If so, it was disheartening.  

I’m not an overly religious person, but I try and sadly it’s when I need help.  I’ve prayed over this for nights and mornings asking God to show me how to handle this crumbling relationship.  Asking if it was time to let go and move on, but still be there for one another.  I may have gotten the answer I didn’t want today.  

After gathering up our goodbyes and wishing each other luck with all that was going on, it felt as if I was saying a goodbye for good.  I hope that was just my over reacting emotional side coming out and not a sign from God telling me to let go.  

Overlooking the town’s old bridge, it is now 3:38 in the afternoon, and I am resting at picnic table under a tree full of falling pink flowers.  Watching the blooms fall and the birds land on the branches, I feel calm and in the same moment I feel anxious.  Anxious of what will come of my Saturday.  My hopes of going to lunch and falling head over heels for our once was friendship did not happen.  My hopes of falling back into a routine of knowing what to say to each other and not clamming up when the setting became quiet was no longer an option, at least not at this point.  

I assumed I would always have a friend, a best friend, who would always be there and I would for them.  That may still be the case but right now it doesn’t feel possible.  As much as I need a friend somedays, I am still so scared to try to make a friend in someone new.  Scared we won’t hit it off, scared of the awkward silences, afraid we won’t have anything in common, anxious that it will result in the same situation I sit in now.  But I’m making a promise to myself and to Saturday that I will try to get more involved.  I will join in conversations and express my feelings, I will make new friends, and enjoy the ones that I have now.  Saturday feels full of possibilities and I hope to continue this positive outlook on the days to come.