The People Who Hurt Us
Week 3: If we know the people closest to us have the capacity to hurt us the most, is the responsibility on us to give more grace?
This question came after a friend of mine made the classic comment: "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, although ultimately it’s the ones closest to us that could become our greatest enemies.”
We know this trope; many of us have rehearsed an interaction of this quote to some degree. We’ve watched movies where we screamed at the main character about the person they shouldn’t trust; side-eyed a friend of a friend because we saw they were moving funny. But in the reality of life, I am not sure these decisions are so cut-and-dry.
There’s a lot of conversation these days around being a villager and what it takes to interact within the village. A lot of the conversation that I have seen lately has been centered around inconveniencing ourselves for the sake of the village. And I gotta say, giving grace may be one of those inconveniences that we need to lean into a little more. Personally, I love where these conversations have been going lately, because I am huge on community. I promise you, none of my friends are shocked when I mention that quality time is my top love language. A social butterfly to my core, this only child dreams of nothing more than a space full of loved ones coming and going. In my personal hierarchy of needs, community is on par with water, food, and shelter for me, and this surge of conversation around building community has me recentering what I’ve always found important.
Community: the village in which we build our lives around.
It’s the people we pick up on our journey in life who somehow absorb themselves into our schedules and our considerations. The community that nestles itself close. Anyone who has found themselves in a healthy, life-giving community will tell you that it is almost vital to survival, and yet, if you do a quick internet search on the topic alone, you will see that people are starved for community. We, as a society, are craving in-person connections, with statistics telling a story of loneliness that we can no longer ignore. We’re starved for human vulnerability, human touch, human thoughts, human closeness.
But with that closeness comes human messiness.
The closer we ingrain community into our lives, the more the community can see beneath the layers we put up for our own protection. The more we respect a person, the more their opinion matters and the more that opinion can hurt. People are going to trip all over our traumas and triggers, often unbeknownst to them that a trigger was even there in the first place. It’s not the strangers that we interact with on the street or the various corners of our internet that cause us harm, not really; it’s the loved ones who have full reign to wreck shop. With that closeness comes the reality that the closer a person gets, the more access they have to hurt us. This is the reality of interacting with humans in this messy story of life, and all of it requires a little more grace.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve needed a redo, another chance because I said or did the wrong thing, mistakenly and sometimes intentionally, with someone I held dear.
No one wants to say this out loud, and definitely no one wants to have this published on the internet, but if we’re honest… if I’m honest, I’ve:
missed important moments,
wasn’t listening completely,
took things offensively,
wasn’t as considerate,
was completely loud AND wrong.
I’ve
been messy,
have lied,
been arrogant and obnoxious,
withheld information,
coveted,
been envious of,
missed cues,
centered myself and my opinions,
allowed my triggers to color a situation,
not shown up,
ignored phone calls,
didn’t reach out,
etc.,
etc.,
Etc.
And yet, was still shown grace.
Was still held with respect and consideration for the fact that, despite a messy moment, or even a messy season, I was still extended love I didn’t deserve and forgiveness I couldn’t match for a second, or third, or fourth time. It is in the face of all that messiness that humbly checks me often when the same is done to me. It has me curious about the responsibility we carry when we interact with our loved ones, because if you’re in relation with someone for longer than a second, at some point, someone is going to get hurt; and instead of pushing them away, maybe we use this as a moment to pause and extend even more grace because at one point, we all needed it.
Now, to be clear, I am not advocating for continual harm for the sake of being in relations with others; nor am I giving a pass to be a bad friend. There are definitely clear, concrete times in life when the relationship needs to dissolve or end immediately for the sake of physical, emotional, and sometimes financial safety. There are also clear, concrete times in life when one needs to step it up and take accountability for their actions, and I am grateful for all of the loved ones in my life who cared enough to call me to the mat, so that they can remain in community with me.
I am also grateful for the friends who allowed me the space to clumsily tell them that my feelings were hurt or express how an action made me feel, and they didn’t get defensive or retaliatory with me.
I am grateful for the second chances that I have been given and the friendships that have bounced back after what seemed to be the end of the relationship. I’m grateful to have walked through all this human mess to make it to the other side with a friend still close and a story to pass to the younger generations in my care.
I am not sure where that grace ends. I am currently working out what that looks like with my boundaries and expectations that I hold in my relationships, because I haven’t always extended grace. I’ve ended friendships way too quickly because I didn’t take time to pause and even communicate that I was hurt. I’ve cut people off as a means of protection when things started not going my way. And with all that, I’m starting to learn that there may be a better way. Lately, I’m realizing that I am not ready to throw away a relationship without serious consideration. Not anymore. I know that at this age, I’d rather work it out, or at least try.
Allow someone an opportunity to know they hurt me.
Talk it out. Yell it out if needed.
Come to an understanding, if there’s an understanding to be had, and if not, at that point, respectfully part ways. I’ve come to the stage where I am leaning into my uncomfortabilities, assessing the relationships that mean the most to me, and tilling the garden there. And for me, right now, that means grace, and even more grace, and it’s through that work that I am excited to see what could potentially grow there.