What is your friendship balance?
As humans, we make mistakes. We err for no reason and that’s human. It is a trait that we are born with, from the beginning of time. However hard you try avoid making mistakes, you sometimes fall into them.
Some months ago, I wronged a close friend. This mistake led to an unhappy and unexpected ending. We had just finished a phone call. It was made on a beautiful, sunny morning. I still remember that conversation and play it over and over in my head. I think about what I said, the effect it had on our relationship, how much was said and what shouldn’t have been said.
This is the thing about human relationships;
it cannot be broken into parts. It comes as a complete package which cannot be separated. After that sad end to our relationship, I did not go back and apologise. No words were enough to undo the damage and the hurt I had caused. I was afraid of his harsh response which could only make things worse, so I decided to leave things to time, as time is a great healer and fixer, or so I hoped.
As the days went by, what I wished finally happened. Time did not fail me for it fixed the damage my tongue had caused and now I feel relieved that I managed to salvage our friendship.
The air of distrust was lifted. We were back to talking terms. He wrote to me again. I was overjoyed with his message as I was sitting back in my office bored and tired at the end of a very long day. His message brought my body and soul back to life and filled my heart with joy. I know deep down I’m still guilty and deserve every punishment, but what I care about most is finding out if I still have some balance left in my relationship account with him. I thought I had gone bankrupt and my account was closed at his Central Bank.
Investing in friendship is never a fruitless task. True friendships survive the test of time. But never take friendships for granted. Work on them, be kind to your friends. Insensitive remarks and harsh words could diminish the balance in a friend’s account. If left untended, friendships too could go bankrupt.