TRUE FRIENDSHIP, And Other Impossible Dreams

"Friendships are complicated affairs.  They are so richly layered and textured with emotion and supply such a smooth and subtle stream of underlying gratification that they often go unnoticed and unappreciated.  We tend to think of them as a kind of backup support for the mainstays in our lives like family and career, and because so much of the time we are focused on ourselves within these seemingly more prominent domains, we tend to underestimate their influence and their importance in the overall design.

And like any type of relationship some friendships have far more depth and power than others.  Occasionally, there comes along a person who seamlessly folds into your life so completely that it is difficult to recall what life was like before they arrived or to imagine what it would be like if they were ever to leave.

These are the ones that exist at a level that is utterly ineffable.  While it is true that they are still subject to the necessary and unavoidable shifts and passages that we experience as we live, age and grow and have definitive waxing and waning effects; if at the core they remain solid, those temporary lapses are easily accepted and readily forgiven.  There is never the concern that the friendship will fail because, aside from committing an outright, egregious and conscious betrayal of trust or respect, there is the sure knowledge that nothing in this world can prevail against the bond and cause it to rupture."

That was how I began my response email to one I received a few months ago from a woman I was under the impression had been my closest friend and confidante for the past quarter of a century.  In her email to me she basically stated that, not only does she no longer feel she has a connection with me, but worse still, that she began feeling this way nearly fifteen years ago!

Of course, I don't fully believe her, and I have reams of emails, memories of phone calls and visits, and hundreds of letters between us over the years that tell a different story, but the bottom line is that she believes it or at least that she wants to.  Faced with that, I've precious little leeway on my regular route, 'Overlook Highway', and so I am forced to acquiesce and coast over a few lanes onto the off ramp.

Now, as hard as this was to take, it was not the first out-of-the-blue-pink slip I'd been handed.  A couple of short years ago I was given the old heave-ho by yet another dear compatriot whose friendship extended back to our early teens.  This platonic armageddon ostensibly resulted from a differing of opinions regarding the state of world affairs moralistically, but again, it was not the stuff to prompt a radical dissolution and so it came as a complete shock when it led to that.

Both of these heartbreaking implosions of amity have something in common in that both were ignited by the same combustible vice, and I don't know whether to characterize it as competition, envy, covetousness, or a combination of all three. But at least in one case there was a forthright admission that ' ludicrous levels of contempt' played a huge role in the schism; and as difficult as that was to learn, I was grateful for the honesty as it enabled me to put the pain to rest and slowly reconfigure a more realistic dynamic between the two of us once tenable amends had been made.

But it was these two startling and painful platonic breakups  (along with other, unrelated but equally rattling situations and circumstances),  that have prodded me to further examine what it is in me that can neither see nor predict sincerity when it comes to friendships with women.  Even more, why is it that when I am aware of disquieting elements, I choose to ignore them?

I mean, I have spent decades reading books on and taking courses in the study of graphology as well as having read countless books on body language and face reading.  When I was fourteen I began intensely  studying the Bible along with the teachings of the ascended masters; and later on, astrology, numerology, lives of the saints, and tarot among many other things.   One of my favorite pastimes is reading books on psychology and Quantum physics as the theory relates to spirituality as well as the universe - not that I totally grasp all of it, mind you.

 I am proficient in most of these areas and have a better than average knowledge of the others, and yet I repeatedly set myself up for betrayal and disappointment when it comes to my friendships with other women.  How can I chase all that psycho-spiritual, esoteric wisdom and still be at once so appallingly ignorant that I either cannot tell or will not accept that every bone in my foot is being pulverized as I have it firmly planted on the threshold of the friendship door while it is being violently slammed shut?

Come to think of it, I have a very real and graphic memory of that exact situation going back to when I was four years old and my younger sister, Colleen, and I had been sent to stay with a family with five (or was it five-hundred?) older kids for a few days while my mother was in the hospital giving birth to our bother, John.

Unfortunately, the miscreants in this clan had a decided preference for my adorable baby sister and they expressed their preference by making dunce caps for me and place them on my bed in the middle of the night or intimidating me into eating the raw cake batter that had been stirred with Lincoln Logs from their grimy little Easy Bake Oven set in the middle of the day.  (Of course, they also wrote my name and other disparaging things on these paper caps, which made them look considerably more ignorant than I, since I could not yet read;  a fact that later served as some small consolation.)

 But  one day I was following my sister into a room where our juvenile hosts were gathered around the television.  One of them came to the door, hastily plucked my sister from the spot and then just as quickly slammed shut the door on me catching my big toe and ripping off the toenail.

However,  I said nothing to anyone about the incident.  I just went into the room I'd been assigned and rocked back and forth on the floor.  I don't believe it was until I had been returned to my parents that the injury was discovered and bandages were applied.

 Unfortunately,  no bandages could fix what I retained from the experience, which was that for some reason completely unknown to me I was not worthy and had better keep a steady supply of Bactine and Bandaids on hand at all times.

What this appears to illustrate is that from the very start I didn't know how to handle the barbed edges that come naturally to us in life.  I could neither consciously anticipate nor adequately refute them.  And it is a theme that has reiterated that same message right up to the present day; although up until these most recent and sudden drop-kicks off the friendship train, I had rejected it's validity.

I think I must have been frequently dropped as an infant because none of my siblings suffers this appalling deficit in their abilities to read social cues and recognize insincerity when confronted with it.  In fact, they were and still are very popular, well-loved individuals with cache's of good and loyal friends on several continents.

 My sister has lived in London for a couple of decades, and when she turned fifty her friends organized a luncheon for her that my mother flew over to attend.  My Mom was deeply moved and delighted to find over forty women at that luncheon celebrating my sister's presence in their lives, and was moved to tears as they went around the table with each woman relating a story about my sister and her immeasurable value to them.

When I turned fifty, I had to plan and host my own party and scramble at that just to come up with an adequate number to qualify it as one.   And the one girlfriend I regarded as my oldest and dearest friend and who knew about the party weeks in advance announces upon her arrival that she had to leave early to attend the bachelorette party of a co-worker at a transvestite cabaret bar.  

Thirty-five years of friendship, yet I ranked lower than her acquaintances and singing drag queens.  That was a tough one to justify within the boundaries of ego because it was my ego that took the hit; but as always, denial waltzed in and took up the cause granting my grief a stay of execution.

The point of all this is that I should have seen the signs of disinterest or envy or anger or whatever it was that ultimately led these women to decide life was better and easier without me in it, and I didn't.

 Okay, that actually isn't entirely true.  I did see the signs.  Many of them.  I just chose to either ignore or make excuses for them.  It was easier on my heart that way, and quite honestly, I didn't want to believe that my friendship wasn't wanted or appreciated.  I do have some egoistic attachment, after all. But worse still is the fact that when I cannot break through someone else's outer shell or when I feel as though reciprocity is not being equitably expressed, I try even harder and give even more! 

Perhaps it is a result of my early Catholic school indoctrination, but I somehow got it in my head that this was the way to sainthood, and more than anything, I want to be a fair and charitable person who leaves behind a legacy of good in whatever form.

Don't get me wrong.  I know don't qualify for even the third string team of saints-in-training, but I still like to hold it as a realistic and worthy goal especially since I don't have any particularly outstanding gifts or talents to offer.

I mean, sainthood is an honorable aspiration and just loosely defined enough that it offers a fair amount of lateral interpretation, which is a plus for someone who finds authority and limitation a bit daunting.  

Several years ago I penned this little ditty for a drawing I did called THE DIET OF SAINTS.  It goes:

Don't be fooled by labels.

Count Blessings not calories.

Always remember to feed your soul first.

If you still feel heavy,

Give more of yourself away.

Listen, when I was about ten or twelve, I heard the song The Impossible Dream from The Man of La Mancha, and I took it as my lifelong creed.  I bought the whole message, windmills and all; quite missing one of the other salient points of the play being that Don Quioxte was nuttier than a fruitcake!

When my kids were little I used to sing them to sleep at night.  One song was that and the other, The Rainbow Connection, as sung by Kermit the Frog.  Those songs still brings tears to my eyes, and what is even weirder is that, although have not had small children in many years, I still listen to the damn things on a fairly regular basis!  I just slip them into the playlist on a burned CD and off I go chasing rainbows and battling windmills in my '07 Kia Sorento.  Someone should probably stop me before I start sprinkling fairy dust and cause a serious accident.

I'm like the embodiment of that old doctor's joke: Doc, how do I get my head to stop hurting?  
                                                                 Doc:   Stop banging it against the wall, Lady!  

I've been slamming my head against the wall of denial and ignorance for five decades, and boy, are my arms and head and heart and soul and spirit tired!

But I don't think I am alone in this.  I think that there are a certain population of us who simply are not as equipped to successfully navigate the world as are most others.  Perhaps it is the psychological components of healthy paranoia and skepticism that we lack, or the spiritual properties of discernment?  Or perhaps it is an over-abundance of hope and optimism that prevents the darker realities from being clearly recognized, understood or accepted?

I prefer one of these more sophisticated explanations than one of downright stupidity, but with my track record, I won't count anything out.

Alright, I've been about as candid as I can be without stepping on too many toes that don't belong to me.   I have my theories as to why I am this way and why others are, too, but it will have to wait.   I will say that I don't begrudge anyone the right to dislike or become fed up with me, and I hold no animosity towards anyone I've felt wounded by.  I have done my share of dishing out misery, and the walls of my glass house are not double-paned.

  They say that until you become perfect, you shouldn't criticize or judge others.  I think that part two of that is that once you are perfect, you won't want to.  I'm holding onto that one as my back-up goal.  

We all have our lessons to learn, and these incredible women (and they truly are)  are helping to teach me mine, as well as the other way around, I don't doubt.

In the meantime, I still keep an ample supply of Bactine, Bandaids and Tylenol around just in case.