BIRDS THAT FLOCK TOGETHER, WITHOUT ALL OF THE SAME FEATHERS

See, I have always struggled with friendships.
I had a conversation with my mum about her hypocrisy when I was little, Hold on! Hold on!
Let me explain myself first.

You see when I was younger, my mum spent years calling me Mother Christmas, She complained a lot because when she visited me in boarding school or when I came home, I would always want something I had had in excess because I would always give and give and share and share.
She wanted me to be more prudent, even my dad (who isn't there everytime) adviced me about being prudent in university a lot.
Moving forward, now that I am older, I see where I get my generousity from, It's from my mum, hence the reason I called out the hypocrisy. My mum is generous, kind and so giving and although we have spent time over the years in minor and major conflicts, that much I or any one else won't be able to take away from her.

And so there is me.
I have also spent my life being selfless, giving, generous, considerate and sometimes even foolish. In friendships, when you are like me, those things don't come without feeling constantly slighted when people can't do as much or live up to your own standards.

As I continue to Adult, I have realised that although a lot of my behaviour is a norm for me, it has gradually transferred to my friends and they seem convinced that that is how I want them to be.

Do I want them to be better, of course. Even I want to be better but do I love them whether or not they become better of course, I do.

However, I am not here to remind my friends of how I feel about them or to tell them that I don't expect them to hold themselves to my personal standards, I am here for me and for everyone else that might be struggling with standards that their friends, tribes or cliques might set that they might not be able to meet up with. I am also here to dispute a popular adage and out rightly say that:

Birds of a few different feathers, can flock together.

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As I continue to pull illustrations from adulting, I'm reminded that a few years back, even though a lot of my friends and I have always been from different backgrounds, there have always been things we could generally afford, like the occasional shopping sprees, cinema hangouts and clubbing because well we all had a budget.

Growing older however, things are harder and I have started to appreciate the occasional "No".
Sometimes I don't have enough money to go on those shopping sprees because now our budgets and responsibilities are different, I can live in moderation because I'm trying to build my business, I can pretend as if I can't be bothered about not looking like a slay queen to a wedding and not paying for that make up session because well babe has responsibilities, I can look through my wardrobe fifty times, try on thirty outfits just because I refused to buy aso-ebi which by the way I can't afford to splurge on since its a one time thing and I can constantly remind myself that just because my friends have set those standards for themselves, They don't have to be my standards as well.

Yes we were once Birds of the same feathers ( but were we really, we weren't all ever equals financially, physically or even emotionally), who flocked together, but now we can have a few different feathers and maybe not even flock together every time.

After all every other week, I am at the cinema by myself seeing a movie and flocking alone.
I guess it would be more appropriate to end this with another quote and say we all need to learn to cut our coats according to our cloth and be fine with it.

Understand this!
Adulting is not a walk in the park, I can't scream it enough. And although we might be able to afford to live a certain way, we all have things we do because our friends are doing. Those are the things we need to stop, we have to learn to be strong-willed and really define our life and the energy we intend to put into the things we do and also learn to manage our time and preserve our energy.

Have you noticed that when you go out of your way to do the things you don't want to do, There is always something that would make you regret doing that and saying things like "I didn't want to o".

Avoid that.

If you have ever had those experiences, share it with me in the comments and lets all learn!

xo,
Dee