Some days deserve a rewrite.

Yesterday I wrote a post lamenting the end of a friendship.  Perhaps it was worth mourning at the time.  But now that I’ve had a day to ruminate on the matter, I realized it was ridiculous to dedicate any amount of time on something that really lost its value over time.  The tears she cried when I moved from North Carolina apparently were that of crocodiles.  She had also just given birth to her son so I’m sure hormones might have had something to do with it.

While I do think the time spent in North Carolina produced some life changing moments, I don’t think many real friendships were made.  Or perhaps I was a different person back then, newly divorced and deeply entrenched in a toxic codependent relationship.  The place had a lot of drama, which I left in exchange for even more drama in Illinois, I realized.  The most important takeaway from the drama years was that I don’t need an entourage of friends and weekends full of exciting things to do.  Peace and quite is definitely my preference.

So life goes on and I can’t really lament the time lost mourning a friendship that ended long before it became Facebook official.  I could have been doing a risk analysis of diabetes in DuPage County, which I will be scrambling to do today due to this time wasted.

Just like food that was burnt onto a frying pan, all it took to wash it down the sink was a quick overnight soak.  And voila, it’s all gone, ready to start anew.

Unfriended and Blocked. Oh my!

Today I discovered that an old friend decided to end our friendship.  Granted, in this day and age, this type of breakup is initiated by changing one’s Facebook relationship.  Sure you can Unfollow someone if you don’t want to Unfriend them.  It’s very passive-aggressive because (as far as I know) the offending friend doesn’t know about it, but even in real life face-to-face relationships, there are people we must tolerate but simply Unfollowing them just means I am not subjected to their ramblings on my Newsfeed.  It happened more often than I care to admit during and after the recent election, but sadly, now that everything has calmed down and (most of us) have resorted back to the usual snapshots of food, kittens, and gym memes, I cannot remember who I Unfollowed.  My Facebook Newsfeed probably consists of the same 5 people’s posts because of this.

But really, I should be too busy to care.  Facebook is an artificial means to be friends.  And I suppose that could mean that friendships that are maintained in such a way are actually pretty fake because most people only put forth what they want others to see.

Perhaps the “real” stuff is saved for actual real face-to-face interaction, but to me friendships are no longer taken that seriously because I never know who is sincere.  I realized when listening to gossip one day that I was probably once the main topic of discussion from this particular blabbermouth.  In the grand scheme of things I shouldn’t care because at this point in my mid-40’s, my life is an open book and guess what?  It’s not that interesting.  However, when your supposed best friend is going through a divorce, I don’t want to know the details of what is going on.  I’ve been there and it’s no one’s business, especially when you are the best friend who has been entrusted to listen and not tell the world.  Quite honestly, it’s about as heartless as gossiping about someone’s death, because that is what divorce is.  Death.

Anyway, in the artificial world of social media, Blocking someone is pretty serious.  Maybe I’m basing this on my own standards because I only block those who are truly offensive to me.  Even close friends who can sometimes be a bit off-color just get a quick scroll-through before I would even contemplate blocking them.  I think to myself: “Yeah sure, they’re behaving like an asshole at the moment.  But I’ve known them for X amount of years.  I value our history and know he/she is a good person because of A, B, and C.  This disagreement is not so huge that I would actually Block them.”

Well, I was either not that valuable of a friend or I behaved like such an asshole that I could no longer be tolerated.  I will go with the former, perhaps to pad my ego a bit because I won’t lie, my feelings are a little hurt.  Although, maybe this person was so used to me being sweet and agreeable that when a subject matter came up which I am passionate about forced me to take a stand and challenge her viewpoint, she was so taken aback by this that her only response was to drop me as a friend.  She made no real effort to actually engage.  Not that she had to.  But apparently I hit a nerve.  How dare I.

Good.

Oh well.  I really like the person I’m becoming.  If this ex-friend doesn’t recognize that (and she doesn’t… how could she when she is so consumed with her own thing), then she deserves to be a part of my not-that-interesting past rather than the craziness of the present and the celebration of things to come in the future.

Who is missing out?  Certainly not me.

From Point A to Point B

In my previous post I talked about the meandering line one often takes when trying to figure out solutions to health problems, rather than the linear reductionist approach which often leaves many stones unturned.  We cannot come to the conclusion that a single “thing” caused something to happen when we should also consider other factors that might play a role, many of which might not be very impactful by itself, but can be quite significant if many of these small, seemingly insignificant factors come into play at once.

Going with that meandering line theme, I mentioned to my sister today that diet trends are like that.  There are so many out on the market these days.  Not all are bad, though it really depends more on what sort of intervention an individual can incorporate more permanently so that the diet is a lifestyle change rather than just a quick fix.  They all start with Point A in which one wishes to lose weight, whether for aesthetic reasons or health reasons.  The hope is to get to Point B eventually.  Diets which are more restrictive tend to yield results more quickly, hence arriving at Point B with a much faster eta.

Whatever the case may be, obsessing over the path of Point A to Point B doesn’t do anyone any good.  With enough effort, we all get to Point B eventually, though I’m sure the vast majority of people would rather get there sooner than later.  However, more and more I’ve been seeing diet trends that are so damn complicated that I don’t know how most people can find the time to figure out how to incorporate it into their lives, especially when they work full time and have children to drive here, there, and everywhere.  This is because a common social determinant that negatively impacts people of all socioeconomic levels is lack of time, which I believe is a major contributing factor to the obesity epidemic.

Lack of time keeps us from devoting time to ourselves and our families.  It also prevents us from exercising more, hitting the fast food drive thru less, and further adds to the ever-accumulating stress that we can never seem to shake ourselves of because… we don’t have time.  It is already a challenge for some folks to gain affordable access to healthy food, what more to the added challenge of preparing these meals, then somehow making it to the gym or at the very least a brisk enough walk around the neighborhood to count for the recommended 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week.

So how about we make the path from Point A to Point B a little more scenic?  Take the time to incorporate healthy habits so that most of them stick, but even more important, take the time to learn about yourself so that you understand what sabotages your efforts and feel far less defeated when that happens because you know you have the ability to pick up where you left off and continue on.  There are always set backs in every journey, but if the end result is a better understanding of your own health, then it is a path of discovery that is definitely worthwhile.