Weeding the Garden

Yesterday, I got a message on one of those social networking sites. It was from the daughter of a girl with whom I'd gone to high school. I was excited, because I had done a couple google searches of her name but never found anything. We had only gone to high school together for a year before my parents moved me across the country. We remained in touch throughout the years, but lost touch probably within the last 11 years.

Prior to this message, I found another old work chum on that same social networking site. She and I had formed a strong friendship over a period of several years. She ended up moving to another state and then so did I. When I did find her and we reconnected, I was excited that I had my old friend back.

Now that I've moved into adulthood and met new people, I recently started thinking about the people who are in my life for no particular reason. We may share texts, or emails, or maybe even a lunch or dinner together. But they're not really a friend that I'd count on if I ever needed anything, or vice versa. So what do I do with these people?

I slowly began to realize that I needed to start weeding out the people that are not essential to my life. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I am only getting rid of people that don't benefit ME somehow. It's mutual really. An example would be men who I dated before. I have a boyfriend, who I'm content with. They have wives or girlfriends, or maybe not, and at this point it's just not appropriate for us to be sending frivolous texts, emails or having meals together. Some are people who I knew in passing when I saw said men and when I do speak with them, it's about events in my past that I'm more than happy to leave in my past. Catch my drift here?

As I thought about these things, and made the decision to weed out certain individuals, I got a call from none other than my ex-husband. Turns out he and his girlfriend were having issues in their relationship and he wanted to talk to me about them. I'm not sure why folks. We were married for over 17 years but the marriage didn't end well and I realized he was a perfect candidate for being weeded out. I had no desire to talk to him about anything at all, much less his relationship problems.

I don't know what made him think it was appropriate for him to consult me, so I can only assume that maybe *I* made him think that. I put an end to it. I asked him to stop calling me, and more importantly, I asked him not to bring me up in any conversations he had with his girlfriend. We have both moved on to other relationships and relying on each other for anything is not necessary. Some of you may think that because he spent so much time with me, he felt that he could count on me to tell him the truth, or understand where he was coming from. Well, that's true. And because he can count on me to tell him the truth, I told him I didn't want him in my life anymore, nor did I want to be in his life. This wasn't easy for me. There was a time when we had been in love, worked out problems together, and consulted each other on major life decisions. But we had grown up, he had become an addict, and it changed everything between us. Where there was once trust and love, there was now suspicion and disdain.

This first weed-pull was especially hard. It forced me to see my life as it is now, as opposed to how it was just three years ago. Moving forward requires logical thinking with little to no emotional consideration. It's a whole new world for me. One weed down, so many more to go.