I'm not good at keeping in touch with friends. I've lived in different countries, and different states. At each point in my journey, I made good friends. Yet, once our daily lives didn't mix, we lost touch.
I'm bad at long-distance friendships because even when we did live closer, they had to drag me out of the house. I'm a bit of a recluse. Not in the Boo Radley sense, I just enjoy my own space. So how do I carry on the friendships when I'm in a different space?
I wish my friends knew the love I still hold for them in the secret places of my heart. I fantasize about owning a giant commune where we might all live together one day. Best block party ever!
-- Friends will help you move. If you don't think that's a big deal you are WRONG.
-- Friends will be nice to your mom. I can't explain to you quite how hard and wonderful that is.
-- Friends will forgive your choice of partner and be respectful to you. Even when they don't want to be.
-- Friends will dance with you in pajamas and bring you skittles and redbull when you study for exams.
-- Friends want you to be happy. It is important to them.
-- Friends will stay up late drinking rum and laughing about your favorite things. Then they'll help put dishes away.
-- Friends share a secret oath borne from you knowing their shit and they knowing yours. If you go down, they're going down too. But when you need to be uplifted, they will help you rise.
When I think of friends, I think of smart, funny, talented, crazy, kind, and most of all loyal people dotting my life like guards on a fortress. I don't know why, given the failure I am at closely maintaining our friendship. It must speak to their character not mine. Whatever it is, my friends amaze me. These ferocious sirens, these goddesses of crazy shining brilliance, would build a wall around me and shout down the devil, if they felt I needed them to.
I'm only here because of friends and family. On dark nights, in hollow moments of agony, I have thought of ending it all. I wonder if my friends even know that they have, more than once, saved my life.
I hope they know how grateful to them I will always be.
Dedicated to Lil Bear, Evelina, Boho, Soo Chen, Leather, Lulabella, Tamara, Camilla, my cousins, my step-mom, and many more wonderful friends who grace my life.
Write on Edge Prompt: Friendship in 400 words
41 comments:
I'm the same way. I don't have a lot of friends, but I have a couple great ones... who, despite my inability to always step up, always seem to step up for me. Family is definitely included in that. I love you <3
Just curious if your friends make an effort to "keep in touch" with you? Because I often say the same thing about not being able to keep in touch all the time (like you, I like my space). However, communication is a two-way street!
Either way, this is a really nice post, and it's really sweet you dedicated it to those you love. :)
xo,
Kristen
Back at you cous!!
They do at first! And they seem to still love me after years!
Thanks for that nice comment!! :)
I like your take on this, how you speak of what friends do in general, makes it easy to relate. Real and heart-felt
Thanks Lindy!
Your post made me think of my "mom friends" I made years ago through a playgroup. They took care of me when my dad suddenly died two years ago and I'll never forget that. Smart, funny, crazy, kind ... that's these ladies. Good stuff, they are.
Visiting from WOE. :-)
Friends really are the treasures of this Earth. Great post!
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I wish my friends knew the love I still hold for them in the secret places of my heart. " Beautiful line... I can completely relate to this feeling!
Great post. My favorite line was "I wish my friends knew the love I still hold for them in the secret places of my heart." That was so beautifully written! Bravo!
Friends have such different roles in our lives. I'm sorry you've lost touch with some of yours, but it sounds like you have had some real, true friends in your life!
I am so fortunate to have the same best friends that I did as a little girl. Joyce, Joyce, Jane, and Diana have always been my best friends. No matter where our lives take us, and how many months it has been since we have spoken, there is a bond that cannot be broken. I love them more today than I ever have. Joyce B's husband and mine say they don't even remember some of their childhood friends. They watch us giggle and cry and embrace each other and realize how lucky we are.
And then there are my cousins. What can I say? I am forever grateful for Facebook for bringing me closer to my cousins again. We have always been a funky bunch, haven't we? Pishy, Angie, Tina, and all the rest of you loony bird, irreverent shit bastards out there - you have such a special place in my heart and in my life.
Thank you for being my friends.
Thank *you* Lola!! You've talked me through some hard emotional spots this year!!
The Irreverent Shit Bastard Contingent in our family has really helped me being so homesick and far away. I am grateful to all the bastards.
Thanks Angela! I want everyone to live in one place in a giant commune or cul de sac where we can have the best block parties EVER!!!!!
Thanks Nicole! That's a nice thing to say!
Thanks Betsy! I guess I found a way to make the secret places less secret!
Thanks lady!! I appreciate that!
Oh I'm so sorry for your grief. My friends are helping through leaving an abusive relationship and my mother almost being killed in an accident and now suffering brain damage. Thank you so much for your comment. Friends are everything!
This is beautiful. And I'm really glad you had these friends to save your life. I'm positive that they wouldn't want to lose you anymore than you would want to lose them.
So many good points.
I think real friends are the ones who act the right way - whatever that may be - with your parents. Even when they know all about them.
Nice job.
Thank you coolchick! Next time give me a trivia question that I totally know the answer to, and also email me, text me, twitter me, call me, come to my house, and send a note by carrier pigeon that you've posted it. Kthanks. I only got up to have a sandwich and D'oh! robbed again. ROBBED!
So true - thanks Kim!
So sweet. Friends totally help you move.
Aww, you're such a sweetheart.
I am so eternally grateful for that!
Temporarily! Regularly scheduled snark and bodily function focus will return shortly!
awwwwww! I think the fact you wrote this blog tells us why we love you.
Things I love about this post: Boo Radley, Skittles, Redbull, and your list of all of your gal pals at the bottom:) Oh, and that you lived in different countries. I'm jealous for real now.
It's all a secret ploy to get more of your beautiful artwork. Why don't you have a guest post on my blog this week to display some photos and jewelry? Write about diabetes perhaps? Or the out of work thing? Or burying your daughter up to her neck in decrepit barbies?
When you put it like that, its just lovely! Come over and sit on the front porch with us :)
Friends also know - but keep it a secret-that you wear your bikini bottoms on laundry day because you used up all the underwear.
I'm afraid boyfriends know that too. But they don't seem to mind.
Dancing in pajamas sounds fun! :)
Definitely chases the stress and worry away :)
This post is all kinds of awesome. Seriously. I wish you were my friend, as I feel exactly the same way as you, minus the group of great friends. Yes, I have a couple, but I also hole up entirely too often. It's hard to make yourself vulnerable, but when you do you get something very cool--those friendships.
Great post :)
You had me at Boo Radley. I related to this so much. I've lost so many friends because I am not one to go out or to make phone calls. The real ones, they stick around despite that.
Great post!!
Thanks Abby! We can be online friends since we spend so much time in our heads :)
Glad you made it back safely!
Haha that's a great first sentence. The real ones do stick around. Every once in awhile you gotta give em a holler. But I have found that I don't really miss the friends I don't have because I don't like going out - it was too much effort. My real friends, the ones listed above, who I haven't seen in years some of them - its like butter (okay butter that sits out, not the butter that's in the fridge). It's mostly just so easy.
Friends do save lives. This is a heartfelt post and you have quite the list of friends. I love "if you go down, they're going down too. Says something that know all your shit! Over from WOE.
Thank you Gina! Come back any time :)
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