• Remembering to Love Our Soul Brothers and Sisters Disguised As Enemies (1st)
• Choosing To Be My Own Best Friend (2nd)
• 4:44 (3rd)
• Epiphany! (4th)

Continuing from the post, “Remembering to Love Our Soul Brothers and Sisters Disguised As Enemies“

October 24, 2012 (Wednesday)

A few days ago, it was Becky’s birthday, so I invited her over to hang out starting around 11:00 a.m.. My husband and I gave her a musical birthday card, and she smiled a big smile. I made grilled omelet sandwiches for lunch, we enjoyed our meal, and then sat down on the couch to chat.

That’s when the oh-so-familiar negativity talk began as usual. She mentioned that she didn’t understand why so many bad things were continuing to happen to her back-to-back. I had already talked to her a few times about The Law of Attraction, and that continuous negative thoughts, feelings and images lead to attracting negative events; so this time, I just listened and tried to comfort her.

Then, she reminded me about her finally being bankrupt, and the rest of her financial problems. After the third time she complained about her feet hurting during work, I reminded her for the 10th time or so that it probably stemmed from her gaining over 70 lbs, and that her feet are not used to the excessive weight.

Although I’ve made several suggestions, gave her pep talks, printed out calendars for her to keep track of her healthier eating habits and exercise, printed out recipes, offered her to read a post I had written about on my blog called, “The D.I.S.H. (Delicious, Inexpensive, Simple and Healthy) Ideas for Meals, Snacks and Drinks,”…she didn’t bother trying any of them. She just wanted to complain as usual.

So I was straight up with her and said, “Well, only you can make a change if you’re unhappy with where you’re at. I can talk until I’m blue in the face, but I can’t, and choose not to, force you to change. You can either do something about it, like I’ve told you many times before, or you can make the same complaints ten years later.” She gave her usual reply, “Yeah, I know. I should do this and I should do that…etc.”

She then blamed the cafeteria at her work for not serving anything but burgers and fries during her lunch hour. So I asked her, “You can’t take lunch?” She then admitted that she could, and that she should. She then blamed McDonald’s for having tempting food that’s cheap, simple, and tasty. I told her that I understood, and that I agreed, but that it was up to her to have some kind of discipline. That we should treat ourselves to fast food and junk food every now and then, but not eat them daily.

I found myself getting drained again, but this time it wasn’t as bad. Maybe it was because I wanted her to have a nice birthday. Plus, I saw three angelic number sequences that day: 7:11, 9:11 and 3:33, which communicated to me that I was on a positive path. The day before, I saw 11:11 again. I started a journal to keep track of messages from angels. Some people may say that’s crazy talk, but it doesn’t matter as long as I believe they’re messages from God and his awesome team.

Anyway, I made her favorite strawberry cake, so we added candles with colored flames that my husband had bought, sang her, “Happy Birthday” and took pictures. We were all in awe of the beautiful colored flames that we had never seen before. We then had cake while watching a couple of movies.

One of the movies, “Why Did I Get Married?”  by Tyler Perry actually made her cry when one of the nice ladies talked about how she thought God didn’t like or love her when her mean husband left her; but then she realized that God had something better planned for her, by helping her to meet a very kind man who treated her with love and respect.

I thanked God for that precious moment because I love that it moved her in ways that I’ve always wanted to. She said, “She keeps making me cry.” I handed her some tissue and reassured her that it was completely natural to let it flow. I also reminded her that her special day would come as well. I believe the theme of hope from that particular scene brought tears to her eyes.

For dinner, I surprised her by making one of her favorite dishes. After the meal, her son called, and asked her a question, to which she replied, “She cooked for me” in an unhappy tone. For some reason, it reminded me of all the times she informed me that she enjoys whenever I cook for her, and that if it was up to her, I’d be her personal chef.

Once she “joked” that I should slave away in the kitchen for her. To me, it didn’t feel like a joke, because she never helps with clean up and dishes, and only once, she helped to cut the ends of the fresh green beans…only because I asked her to.

She would hint to me every now and then how she would like me to make certain dishes for her, which is fine…however, sometimes I would get the feeling that I would give her an inch, and she would take 3 to 10 miles, depending on the day. I noticed that it would create some resentful feelings.

I don’t expect a 50/50 give and take, or even a 80/20…but at least a 98/2. I guess that’s the human side of me that becomes conditional when giving love. I guess I just have a hard time understanding someone like her. Due to financial reasons, I can understand why she’s not giving of material things, but she’s not giving in anything really. Sometimes, my mind asks me why I’m even friends with someone like her. That’s when I get confused, because I feel like my heart wants to be a friend to her who loves her unconditionally.

I guess I have a hard time understanding because…if a friend cooked me dinner over thirty times (to include lunch and dinner), and I never offered to chip in for groceries or even cook her a meal once, I couldn’t bring myself to further ask her to cook me expensive dishes. Because to me, that would be taking 10 miles when given an inch.

Her adult son loves Korean BBQ ribs, so she hinted to me a few times that she was craving for them. She was probably surprised that I didn’t instantly offer, “Sure! We’ll BBQ this weekend!” I just told her that beef ribs are expensive, and it was also too hot to BBQ these days.

Once, she even hinted for me to make her favorite Korean dish (Korean kimchee pancakes, which by the way is a major pain-in-the-rear to make). I just told her that it was a pain-in-the-ass to make, and that if she was craving for some, she could buy it and make it herself. She then said that she did buy it once, and made it, but it didn’t turn out good.

I thought, “Well, how nice of you not to invite us over for that meal (or any meals ever), but yet you expect me to make it for you.” The first and last time she offered my husband and I something to eat was some brownies…and she couldn’t even be nice about that.

Every now and then she’ll ask if I would like her to bring something when she comes over, but I’m pretty sure she’s used to me saying, “Don’t worry about it, unless there’s something in particular that you’d like.” It’s hard to ask her to chip in when she constantly complains about her lack of finances, endless bills and how she always has to buy really cheap food just to get by.

Once I just told her to stop making excuses because she can buy fresh vegetables with the same amount of money she spends on microwave food. I know, I’m venting. I get frustrated sometimes. Sometimes, I even get the feeling that she doesn’t really like me…she’s just using me.

I understand that I’m frustrated because I feel that she’s manipulative (with her sad stories about how she always has to eat really cheap food), dishonest, lazy, untrustworthy, full of excuses, disloyal and a major negative influence.

Her sister called after dinner, and she told her that she would call her back on her drive back home. This is the third time that I noticed that she no longer likes to admit that she’s hanging out with me to her mother, sister and son. I have strong feeling it’s due to her talking bad about me to them, the way she used to talk bad about them to me.

I noticed a pattern that the day after I spend a day with her, my energy level drops for a few days. I decided, that instead of having the same old, negative experiences over and over again, and feeling resentful towards her, I’m going to be my own best friend and slowly but surely let her out of my life.

I told her twice before that although she’s my friend, because I’m my own best friend, I would not allow her to continuously bombard me with her negativity. But she obviously has no desire and/or will power to make positive change.

And quite frankly, I’m tired of her bringing me down. I deserve a much better friend. I know I don’t ask for much, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere; otherwise, selfish people like her will just take advantage of you. I never met anyone in 39 years of my life who just takes and takes and takes, and shows no effort to give once in a blue moon.

She never even asks me how my life is going whenever we get together, unless I bring up something. If she told me that her biological father was visiting her for the first time, I would ask her about her experience. But she never asked me how my father’s visit went.

When I texted her that I talked to my two, half-sisters for the first time in 39 years, she texted back, “Good night.” What’s the point of being friends if you can’t even share major life events with one another? I now realize she behaves that way because she truly doesn’t care.

She’s all about herself. Once, she complained how she never gets anything from the world, and I suggested to her that perhaps she should give to the world every now and then, and maybe things would turn around for her.

I watched a Joel Osteen video today that cheered me up, and helped me to update this post and come to a decision. Becky may remember the hard way, but I believe it’s best for both of our spiritual growth for us to go separate ways, since I’m obviously not helping her or myself to be happier and healthier. I wish her well, and if she ever decides to appreciate friendship and live a more positive lifestyle, I’ll be around.

Dealing with Negative Influences – Joel Osteen