On Friendship

Carrie and Jocelyn Thanksgiving 2008

Over the last few weeks, I've been pondering what friendship means, consciously and unconsciously noticing who feeds me and who does not, who I want more from and who I want less from.

I find some of the answers surprising, some not so surprising, some sad, some hopeful, some bittersweet, some lonesome, some nurturing.

I have many friends whom I love deeply who were part of my life in Costa Rica and who are, for various reasons, but mostly proximity or lack thereof, not part of my life now. I have recently renewed my presence on Facebook, and I find some of these friends reaching out to me. I often have a moment of sadness, accompanied by warmth and gladness at seeing their photo and their name.

It brings up feelings of longing - longing for a life I no longer have (and mostly no longer miss, except for the part with friends, warm ocean water, abundant trees, my own home and moonlight on palm leaves) and longing for that particular friend and for the particular way in which we interacted; the things they saw in me and the things they brought out in me that no one else did. There is joy in knowing they still think of me and want to know what I am doing. There is sadness that they are so far away and that I will likely not see them in any version of the near future.

There is also resistance. Will they like who I am now? If I saw them, what would we do or talk about? Would I still like them? These are mind questions and my heart tells me that once I love someone, unless they do me great harm, I will always love them, even if we change and no longer have very much, if anything, in common. This heart knowledge is the reason I hold on to these friends and it brings me hope that someday perhaps we will see each other again, though we are spread thousands of miles apart, in several different countries, with lives as different as they could possibly be.

This longing, this feeling of missing them in my life, is a great teacher for the present (for that feeling is all based in the past). I miss all of them dearly, and I miss our life together, for with this group of friends, we saw each other very often, sometimes daily. We played together, celebrated together, did nothing together, did everything together; and as of today, I have not seen any of them in over six years. What this teaches me, though, in such a beautiful, sweet way, is to cherish the moments I have with anyone in my life whom I love. Cherish.each.single.one.of.the.moments. I could have done a better job of this in the past and it teaches me to savor the time I have with people now. Each conversation, each event that we share, each time we see each other's faces. This is my chance to cherish them. My only real chance to truly be with them. To reach into myself for presence, love, patience, and to focus on them and how they really are. To pay attention. To tell them I love them and support them. To laugh with them and to tell them how much I appreciate them.

This is the way, too, that I honor those friends who I don't see anymore. Each time I honor a single person I love, I honor everyone I love.

I find the nature of friendship ebbs and flows - sometimes I want more from a friend than she can give, sometimes I want to give less than she asks. The questions I have been asking myself around this idea of friendship is: Who really feeds me? Who nourishes me? Listens to me? Shares themselves with me?

There are two people in my life at opposite ends of this spectrum. One, I deeply want in my life, the other, I just recently realized, I don't actually want in my life at all. It's an interesting realization - that someone who's been in my life for years doesn't actually feed or nurture me. Doesn't really listen to me, overshares themselves with me and overasks of me. I don't think I've every actively ended a friendship, but it occurs to me that this is what I need to do in this case. It's not a pleasant feeling, but it's a true feeling, and my heart feels relief that my mind has finally caught on.

This other person is just coming out of their shell, testing the waters, seeing if I am safe. I hope that all of the love of all of those friendships swimming around in my past, and all of the friendships swirling around in my present comes through to them. I hope that my honoring of those friends is enough to bring this new friend closer. So I can really listen. So I can really hear their soul. And so I can honor them in the way all my friends deserve to be honored. One moment at a time.