Day in Review - Friendship and Feelings: As Scary as it Sounds

This is not your typical post from me.  It actually has feeling....sure I could make fun of Sarah Palin, talk about how I want to send Michelle Bachman to Antarctica and how I think Ron and Rand Paul should be locked in a room covered in honey filled with angry bees, but I won't tonight.  Politics in general is leaving a bad taste in my mouth from both sides of the coin. This is about friendship at the deepest levels, when it almost seems like it feeds your soul.

I recently reconnected with an old friend.  Old friends....they carry a part of your heart sometimes. You can live without it, of course, and you probably don’t know you are missing it until you hear their voice or have a conversation.  Within 2 minutes, it can be like the 11 months you spent not speaking never even existed. It is simply a continuation of the last time you saw each other. The memories flood back and take their place in your mind like they never left. You feel safe, complete and you yearn for those times you spent together from the totally ridiculous times where the two of you were causing trouble to the deep talks where you couldn’t speak through your tears. 

"You were the one who made things different, you were the one who took me in. You were the one thing I could count on, above all, you were my friend." 

The times you remember are covered in a haze of Pinot Grigio, laughter and Sarah McLachlan’s Greatest Hits album.  Every word of every song rings true and explains everything you feel for this friend that you can’t verbally express either due to embarrassment or not being able to utter your words the right way. Fear that they won’t get it...that she will take it the wrong way...it’s not like that...it never was.  It is purely and simply a connection you can’t explain. Nothing you felt with any lover, friend, parent, or anyone else.  A soul connection perhaps...one that you are half afraid of because your friend can look into your eyes and read everything you hide.  It doesn’t matter that you hold back from everyone else, this friend sees past the walls with an x-ray vision that both terrifies and fascinates you.  You hope, that in some way, she understands.  This isn’t a romantic relationship at all...it is a friendship at the height of friendship...something not everyone can experience, but you wish they would.  You know, however, that people will judge and people will think whatever it is they think.  Why can’t two people be that close, love each other unconditionally and not be romantically involved? Who are you to judge another? 

"Through this world I stumbled. So many times betrayed Trying to find an honest word To find the truth enslaved"

Friendship can be extraordinarily simple, yet amazingly complex. I have other friends.  I love each and every one of them. I hold friendship above most other things and though I have few friends that I really let in, those friends that do can count on me, no matter what.  This friend though....she is not just a friend...I don’t know what she is.  Certainly like family...her family was my family for a few years...I wish I could go back to that.  It isn’t that I don’t love my family, obviously I do.  I need my family, but when I wasn’t near them, her family was mine...they took me in, no questions asked. They made sure I was warm, fed and did all they could when I needed work.  

Ultimately I made a choice...that choice was something I needed to do and still do not regret.  I am in a much better place physically and mentally. I have come far, made changes and grew closer to others.  I still missed my friend.  I thought about her, prayed for her and her family daily and dreamed about her.  I knew she would contact me and she did.   It is hard to explain a connection like that.  Almost no one understands it.  I won’t blame you if you think I am insane. All I can say is she knows things about me no one else knows.  I think I probably know the same about her.  We have said things to each other we never have told anyone else.  She taught me to dance. She gave me confidence. She accepted me for who I was, even with my faults. 

And now I channel Sarah McLachlan...who we listened to, in silence, letting it feed our souls as we drank good wine....the lyrics are amazingly accurate.  

I had the sense to recognize I didn’t know how to let her go when I left...so I just left. She didn’t fight it.  We fought to try to make it easier...probably hurting each other in the process. I did what I had to do.  She did what she had to do.  Whatever made it easier. I couldn’t stay, she couldn’t go. She expected nothing but friendship and I did the same.  Sometimes I failed...not because I didn’t want it, but because I was afraid to open up to someone.  As she would say...I was the ”Typical Scorpio”.

“Hold on...hold on to yourself...because this is going to hurt like hell” – “Hold On”. 

I can listen to the song “Full of Grace” and every word rings true in one sense or another.  I listened to it often when I moved away...there are a few songs that can touch my soul, but this one is really the exception to all the rules. She may be the only one to understand....and that’s OK.  It’s probably how it should be.

The whole point of this post is to tell you, if you have a friend like this...and I hope you do...hold on to them.  Tell them you love them, give them a hug, a kiss, let them know what they mean to you. I hope to do the same with this post. 

I love all my friends, and all of them hold a special place in my heart, each different than the last.