Pastels 2020: Friends & Family

Hello my beloved readership,

another trend celebrates its comeback: Pastels 2020. This year they teach us to not be radical in our decisions in the context of friends and family.

You might have noticed it, I have been toying with the idea and then since my wedding it was pretty much final for me: I lost the belief in friendship. And therefore I even more sternly stuck to the idea of family thinking that I have everything I need with them. With all efforts I gave the saying, that friends which have the suffix -end and family that has the suffix -ily which familiarly stands for “I love you” and is therefore meant to last for ever other than a friend, a meaning. But after all I went through – we went this together – I realized that a family who does not support you, respect you or accept you due to (we analyzed this very properly to come to this conclusion) selfish and egoistic reasons (let us call them lack of attention on oneself and the fear of competition) is not even worth being called family.

“[…] who was there for us? It […] were our friends.”
– Fall4Me

Who poured gifts over us for our baby-shower party? Who made sure we are fine during pregnancy and who came to visit us regularly (or expressed the desire to come and visit)? In short, who was there for us? It was not those I did not want to differ from the family I was born to, it were our friends.

After so much praise one may wonder how come I built a barrier between me and non-relatives? Well, in life (when approaching the infamous 3 at the front) you get to meet a lot of people and you as well are not spared from disappointments. What made me take that step finally was that with my husband I did not only feel like I have it all but furthermore with him having my back I felt courageous enough to let go and invest my energy on people who are looking for the first door out (and in my case it seemed like it was everyone who did so). I felt like you could easier let go off friends than off family. After all blood is thicker than water (or water is never going to become blood). I believed that when you are a family you do in fact tend to yell and shout but you do that honestly and out of love and what confirms that love is to find back to each other right in the next moment whereas with friends I experienced that as you grow further with different phases in your life your friends are eventually turning their back to you or your ways go apart.
I can still shake my head about my case that people whom I considered friends for life considered themselves a “fan-club” to me, required more time and hard times for us to become friends at all or worst manipulated my mother against me one day before my birthday because they could not stand me to say that they will never become friends with my mother because my mother regards them as a daughter (yes, all that happened, not that anyone tells me I have not seen everything yet). This whole experience raised the question in me who regards me as equal special cherished friend like I do. Probably no one but it is okay.

It was okay for me having given up on the idea of that one best friend already in my early youth. I believe you cannot have that one best friend or should not to spare yourself the heart-breaking disappointment when someone does not regard you equally. Apart from that do not all friends behave to your disliking once at a time? Certainly…

Family is not a Matter of Blood

One thing is clear: I have my husband and with him all that I need. But pastels are a good occasion here to think tenderly rather than radically. When you can get this disappointed by biological relatives you will be able to forgive people who may have not been there from the beginning but give you the feeling like they have, equally to a husband. When mistakes are not improved, people forgiven for nothing changing and all your efforts not cherished at all then you will start to throw the frustration of your actual best friends living apart aboard and see that it does not matter how often you meet with each other or how far you live apart because closeness is not a matter of geography. Apart from that do not get frightened from a dispute or difference of opinion. Remember that the same happens with the family that loves you and that just like with them you can and will find back to each other. Perhaps you are yet to meet these friends who call you their family or find out about them but stick to the thought that barking dogs are better than biting snakes. One day you will realize that the one answer to a straight question does not matter because the right ones will pull you out of this darkness and tell you that friends are the family of our choice.

A city chic in pastel colours. A city chic in pastel colors.