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Friday, June 7, 2013

Friendship found, friendship lost...But how would you Know?

Have you ever had a friendship where it seems like there is more effort from one person to keep the friendship up?  I'm sure you have. We all have.  In general, I enjoy the company of most women I meet and can always find something to chat about.  I always try to find something good in everyone.   But the deeper friendship...there aren't too many people in the world that I have been friends with whom I have felt a really deep connection.  One that you can't really put into words.  All it really takes is one or two really good friends.

There is one person that I have known for close to twenty years, but I guess it had to take me to my 40th birthday to really let it sink in that we're not BFFs, to borrow a teeny bopper term.  Naturally, since we haven't lived in the same town for a while, I knew that we weren't best of friends.  Yet I am the person who always went to seek her out, visited her at her place, made the effort to make plans.  Maybe that's a sign of maturing, getting older, that I am trying to deal with this.  The whole Facebook thing doesn't really help.  We see each other every once in a while, maybe once a year, at events of mutual interest.  Usually we just bump into each other.

It's not fun and it's not easy.  I would rather we be closer friends.  I'd rather her visit or call.  I guess that's just not in the cards.  40 is good like that:  my life is otherwise full and vibrant.  Who needs the sadness of a friendship that was never really what I thought it could be?

And yet, after all these years I continue to think about it.

The 1st verse from Dylan's "He Was a Friend of Mine" makes me think of her.  She is alive and well, so the rest doesn't really apply.  But the 1st verse does.

(s)he was a friend of mine
(s)he was a friend of mine
Every time I think about (her) now
Lord I just can't keep from cryin'
'Cause (s) was a friend of mine



"Light," by Phish, a favorite tune of mine especially performed live, also reminds me of this friend.  Especially the less-often heard verse

Obstacles are stepping stones
That guide us to our goals
Fences are filters
That purify our souls

The song has great hope.  It makes me feel like whatever happens in life, this friend and I continue to be connected.  The obstacles that exist in the friendship are there for a reason and perhaps the reason why our friendship hasn't been more than I'd hoped is purposeful and the right thing for me.  Who knows, one day we may cross paths in a meaningful, lasting way.  Doesn't everything happen for a reason?