As our silver Chrysler minivan glides across the road my mom gently asks, “Maria why don’t you give Ann* a call to hang out instead of always moping around the house?”
“No mom she’s friends with Jody*,” I snapped unintentionally.
“Well, it’s awkward to hang out with someone whose friends with the person you are no longer friends with because she betrayed you.”
“Maria, not everything is black and white. There can be some gray areas in there as well. You need to know that people are not set in stone, but their minds can sway. You can’t be too quick to remove people from your life.”
Growing up my mother’s words stuck with me ever since. As a kid I only thought that life was this or that; right or wrong and there was absolutely nothing in-between. However, in reality there is an in-between.
In the summer of sophomore year, I lost my two best friendships out of my own stubborness. Jody and Ann were over my house sitting on the stained pink carpet in my dining room floor. They told me that they were at Old Orchard Swim Club with James* up in the jungle gym. The next thing that they said jabbed me in the stomach, harder than any professional MMA fighter ever could. Ann said that they told James that i never liked him when we were together. She said it nonchalantly, as if she was telling me what she ate for breakfast. I confronted them in my upmost faith knowing that they wouldn’t tell anyone, but I guess I was wrong. I wrote then both off right then and there, kicking them out of my house and out of my life forever. Both betrayed me, I had the right to kick them out, did it?
No I didn’t. That was probably not the best way to handle this situation looking back. I shouldn’t have been too quick to defriend both of them. Instead I should have try to understand; to forgive and accept, giving her a chance to explain and to clean up the mess that we all made. Becuase when I stopped our friendship I was always at hime wither in the computer or in my room reading books. I was never outside until i needed to go somewhere. I was lonely and lost; I didn’t know what to do or who to call.
The realization didn’t come instantaneously but gradual. I started to recognize what my mom’s words meant and began to renovate myself. I reflected and gave second chances rather than quickly eliminating people. And soon enough i was able to see the gray in life. Before I assumed that if someone made bad choices they were bad as a person as well and maybe that’s how my mind became so black and white. Because of this I now know that sometimes good people do bad and bad people do good.
My friendships with Jody and Ann are already too late to mend though all my other and future relationships will not falter by the fact that I’ve changed from a black and white perspective to sometimes gray.
Email me when Maria Timuscuk publishes or recommends stories