I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like me.

This is not my original post. My original post was really for a viewer-ship of one. It wasn't nice, it called a particular person out in several ways, it was meant to be an end to a very one-sided friendship that I am finally done with.

But what I realized was that all the original post did was make me look like the bad guy, and it didn't do much to make me feel better, as I hoped it would.

Simply put, the decisions we make, and how we treat others, directly impact how others treat us and view us.

But we also allow people to treat us in certain ways, again, by choice.

For example, I have allowed myself to be used and taken advantage of by many people. I have this inner need for people to like me that has always been a part of me. A shrink would say it goes back to my need of approval from my parents, which I never had as a child. Regardless, it often gets me into trouble, as there is just no pleasing some people. No matter how much you give, no matter how big of a priority you make someone else, often putting your own life on hold to be there for them, you may not be able to make someone truly be a good friend back. My natural instinct, when rebuffed, is to try harder! Bad idea, and it only opens me up to being used more. But see, I allow this to happen! I have allowed these "frienemies" to make me feel guilty if I ask for something in exchange for my friendship. I have allowed them to make the friendship completely one-way and all about them, when friendship is supposed to be a give and take relationship. Well, it is, I give and they take, and then they GIVE it to me and I TAKE it up the... sorry.

Anyway, I'm sick and tired of feeling like a crappy friend because sometimes I want someone to ask about me. I actually managed to work myself into quite an emotional train wreck last week because a "friend" was being a crappy "friend," but managed to turn it around on me, which she has done before, and you'd think I'd learn, but alas, no. Well, no more. At some point this horrible sense of self-worth that I have needs to be beaten down. At some point I need to make myself a priority, like everyone else does with no problems. That point is now, dear readers. I am going to spend this summer kicking old habits and making new friends, and, hopefully, kicking old "friends" and making new habits. I am also going to reacquaint myself with some old friends and habits.

And, of course, I will chronicle it all. :)

I just killed my best friend. Worst enemy. Same difference.

So I have been tossing around this phrase in my head for the last few days, trying to come up with something worth writing.

Fierce friendships.

You know the kind -- the friendships you had in middle and high school. The kind that had you hating your best friend (the quote that is my title is from "Heathers," by the way). The kind that drove you to feeling like doing great bodily harm to anyone who would dare even give your friends an askew look. The kind that could both comfort you and deeply wound you. The friends who you would see and talk to all day at school, and then spend the entire evening on the phone with, talking about everything and nothing. The kind who you could laugh with until you physically hurt at comments and jokes then that still make you laugh out loud today. And you know damn well you couldn't even begin to explain it to someone else, because they'd never get it.

I miss that. I mean, I still have friends I laugh with, and that I care a lot about, but back then my friendships were more important to me than anything else. To have a group of people who not only understand you, but accept you as you are, is such an amazing gift. But age shifts our priorities to work and family. I'm very grateful for the family of friends I have now, but I do mourn those fierce friendships from my youth.