Sunday, February 16, 2014

Burning A Bridge

This past week, as I was dinging around on the internet and twitter, I came across a wonderful article called "Burn Baby Burn: When to Burn Bridges" written by a fellow hockey wife on Notable.ca. The article is accessible here, and it really struck home with me! Of course, this is for several reasons. A quick summary of the article is that it talks about when a good time to "burn a bridge" or end a relationship is. While theoretically, its never a good time to burn the bridge- at times it does become a necessary thing!

As I've grown older, moved out of the house and to college, graduated college, moved in with and married my husband, and finally moved to a new country, my relationships have definitely changed. Some of these relationships have changed for the better, and some for the worse. For the most part, my friends and family know exactly where they stand in my life. At the same time though, there are definitely some bridges I need to start burning- and I have taken several steps towards this over the years.

This article especially rang true to me because I recently published a list of 30+ Things I want to do before my 25th birthday. If you'd like, check that list out right here. In the meanwhile, there are two goals specifically that this article hits home on, #3 and #17. Number 3 is a positive one, in which I want to write letters/notes/postcards to my friends and family (with the idea of telling them just how much they mean to me!) Number 17, on the other hand, is a little bit of a more tough situation, and is one of those bridges that I burned a few months ago, but have had mixed feelings about it and want to clarify with this woman exactly why I burned the bridge.

See, this woman fits categories 1, 3, and 4 of the article mentioned above. We were great friends in college, but I didn't feel that relationship ever really left the college stage. After college, while I still considered her a  friend, we never really talked all that much and I think just remained friends because of that college basis, and looking back on the good old days. That all changed a few months ago, when in my opinion she hit category 4 of the article and hurt me. Since then, I have removed this woman from my life (Facebook, twitter, instagram) and moved on. However, because of the person I am, despite burning this bridge- I want her to understand exactly why I chose to burn the bridge. Therefore, that is item number 17 on my list of things to do in the next year, and with inspiration from this article I am going to finally burn that bridge. I'm going to write this woman a letter, and explain exactly how and why she hurt me and why we are not going to go back to that same place. I'm going to make sure she knows what happened, and why it didn't need to go down that way. Why we could have still been friends, if not for her actions.

Like the article states, I'm going to burn that bridge and burn it real good. Because once I have this off my chest, I think I will feel much better about the situation and be able to stop hanging onto those ashes. Has anybody else had experiences like this, and taken the time to really burn a bridge?

Thanks Jessica for the inspiration and wonderful article! 
I look forward to reading more articles of yours.

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