there are many things that are obvious in life. the sky is blue (unless you live in vancouver, in which case you can’t look up, since it’s raining, and the sky is actually striped orange and purple and nobody has noticed yet). water is good for you. the closer you get to a child, the more inane and silly your speech becomes. other things appear obvious but only after a certain point. it has taken me years to realize some of these things and this is an attempt to save you some time investment in one of them. “friend” means different things to different people. i wasn’t exactly shocked to figure that out. what absolutely floored me was the vast difference between what i understand that word to mean and what others hear when i say it.
what we’re talking about is friendship in a close way, not the many hundreds of acquaintances that we loosely use the term for. i’m going to ignore that secondary function for a moment and stick to the people who are very close to me.
friendship should be several things. one of which is permanent. lifelong. i don’t say that lightly. you can count on me today; you can count on me tomorrow; if you call me in 2062 and ask for my help, the answer is already yes. this is why lack of commitment bothers me so much. if you’re only transitory, you’re not really friends at all. i won’t run away and i expect that you won’t, either. good, bad, or otherwise, i’m not a conditional friend. which brings me to the second part of the equation. friends should be unconditional. call me at 4am and tell me that you need to talk. or that you need to get to kelowna by dawn. or that you’ve just broken up with your boyfriend and need to borrow my couch for a few days. or that you want me to come and give you a hug. in seattle. no worries.
forgiveness is hard. if it were easy, we’d give it to everyone. i know this is simplistic. if you, my friend, hurt me, i will forgive you. that doesn’t mean i’m going to forget. but i value friendship more than retribution, more than myself, really. that being said, if you want to hurt someone, they’re not likely your friend and this doesn’t really apply, does it?
trust is difficult, too. perhaps not for you but it certainly is for me. i don’t trust easily. ever. mother teresa walks in here and asks me to follow her blindly into the hallway and i have second thoughts. you get the idea. yes, even if she has the habit on. and wings. saints still wear wings, right? once i do, that’s it. you’re in. lately, i’ve been having an issue with this, though. this has been my formula for years and has stood me in good stead. my friends never lie to me. ever. i’m good at judging it but i simply trust that they care more about telling me the truth than about my possible reaction. and that guarantees me honesty, total and complete, every time. not so much, you say? you’d be right. i got complacent. comfortable. joyful, even, in my sanctimonious sensation of protection from the pain of dishonesty. and then i got hit in the back of the head with a metaphysical baseball bat. cricket club, perhaps? five iron. that’s the one. over and over and over again.
and i survived. and i still have my friends. trust is going to be hard to rebuild.
what were we talking about again? oh yes. there’s one thing more important than trust. and it’s not theoretical in the least. ok, it’s theoretical but not the way that i mean it. help.
no, i don’t mean you need to help me. help is what i’m getting at. the most important part of friendship is being there to help. all the time. yes, all the time. every time someone needs help, you give it. and it’s incumbent on them to ask. that’s the give-and-take part of things. i’m going to deal with this in another post but that’s the idea.
it’s been quite a few weeks for me. feel free to ask if you haven’t been in the loop but suffice it to say that i wouldn’t want to relive the month of december for any amount of money. but i wanted to reflect on what it means to have some of the most caring friends that i could ever hope for. and so i have.
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