My immediate family has, without a shadow of a doubt, been in my corner the whole time and been incredibly supportive.
My extended family have surprised me. I knew there would be a few that would, again, support me no matter what. The last text my grandad sent to me a month before he passed away this year was about how proud he was of me, how good I was looking and to keep it up. But then there were a few who have been very supportive when I didn't really expect them too. When one of them makes a comment or talks to me about it or how I'm going, it makes me very happy, because it's a side I've not really seen before (even though I kinda knew it was there somewhere).
The biggest lot of relationships I've seen be influenced by this whole change though is my friendships. You really learn about other people when you go through such a big change in your life. There are the people who you knew would be there from day dot and are incredibly supportive and you know they're not going anywhere and they're right there for you through this whole thing. There are the people who you thought would be supportive and behind you the whole way, but are only supportive on the surface when other people can see. There are the people who don't check in with you every so often, but when they do, it makes your day because you can see how happy and excited they are for you. And then there's the group of people that surprises you the most because you don't really know who's in that group on any given day. It's that group of people you don't really talk to that often or you might not really interact with but who seem to almost come out of the woodwork and "like" a post or photo on facebook or leave a comment. Those are the ones I almost love the most because it's like you may not speak to them much at all, but that little hit of the "like" button shows that they care.
The thing is though, your relationships change as you change. You become closer to some people because you're more open or confident or outgoing and your share more with them, whereas some of your other relationships start to break apart because you have changed as a person and what may have worked before doesn't necessarily work now. What I've noticed is that my relationships with the supportive, positive people in my life have gotten better and stronger because they are genuinely happy for me and I can see that, whereas the relationships that are starting to falter are the ones with people who have been less supportive than they could have been and I can see that they don't really care. It's caused me to feel very self conscious about talking about certain things around them because I feel like I'm boring them once again but I know it's the way they feel about me that's the issue and not something I can change. Realistically though, if they can't (or won't) accept the changes I've made and the person I am now, that's not my problem and I'm much happier and more "me" than I was before, so why should I have to censor the "real me" to fit everyone's preferences?
I've seen a lot of things this year about "breaking up with toxic friends" or "getting rid of the negative people in your life" and I understand completely, but it's not as easy as just "breaking up" or "getting rid" of someone because there are moments when it's good and the friendship is fine. I've always avoided conflict and I'm not about to start burning bridges, but if some of my friendships just drift apart because we're too different now, I'm prepared for that.
I know that I should have expected my relationships to change, but just how much they've changed sometimes amazes me. It'll be interesting to see what happens with them further down the track. Will the positive ones just get more positive and the negative get more negative or will something else happen? I guess time will tell.
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