Long-(not)-Lost Friends

I found a pile, just yesterday

Credit: friendshipday.org free wallpaper

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How many friends do you have? Wait, don’t answer that yet. What if friendship were defined as a relationship with someone who will come to your rescue at 3:00 a.m. - on the side of the road, at the airport, in the woods, at a fight, you name it? You need help, they’d come no questions asked. Now, how many friends do you have, not including family or your life partner? Prior to yesterday, I could count mine on one hand.

What happened yesterday? Yesterday, I caught up with someone I’ve known for years, but hadn’t spoken to in several years. Last we spoke, Maria was going through a challenging time battling a disease no one should have to deal with, but especially not someone her age. She was shocked to hear from me. I could hear it in her voice. What I thought would be a quick hello during my normally 10-minute long wait in the Chic Fil A drive through turned into almost an hour-long conversation with a promise to talk again this weekend.

Maria worked for me in the way-back machine. She’s special. In a way I cannot adequately explain, she’s number one in a really long list of “best employees ever” each of whom topped the ones before them, until her. She is 100% efficient. Candid, to a fault, but in the nicest, sweetest possible way. I lost count of how many times she cussed (I know, that doesn’t sound sweet but wait…) at me when she was calling me on my bullshit, and it is all just such an inherent, authentic part of her DNA that she probably will immediately think “I never cussed at her!”. But she did. And the only thing that ever bothered me about her getting that lathered up was what kind of a fuck-up I was being to get us there. It’s not like I ever reduced her performance rating for getting pissed. That would have been not only absurd, but also chicken-shit.

In just under an hour we shared SO MUCH that it felt like we talked for hours. We talked about how so many people have lost so much and lost so many people in the last several years. We talked about her loss of her father, which left a gaping hole in her heart and her life. We talked about fear and how to process grief. We talked about my losing my mom to a drunk driver when I was 9 years old and how everyone we see in day to day life has lost a loved one and whether it is a quick or lingering death, it is devastating all the same. I shared about a similar time, with multiple tragedies in a row, I’d had in my life and how a counselor said to me that what I was experiencing was simply too much. I needed to take a step back, breathe, and just process it. Not try to get through it, around it, or over it. Just let it be. And then we connected over the topic of opening our minds and hearts and being present. She’d wanted to feel something of her father and found a book really helpful - Signs, The Secret Language of the Universe by Laura Lynne Jackson, which I asked her to share with me. Our talk about her experience with and from this book brought to mind how much the universe was ‘after me’ to be present. To engage. To be here with my environment and the people in my space versus looking at a device or watching TV or not listening to their words, which indicated their longing to connect - with me.

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And here we are back to my pile of “new” friends. Despite Maria’s shock to hear from me, she was so sweet (see, I told you she’s sweet) to indulge my urge to know how she was faring in life. She and I opened up in ways I don’t recall our doing before. That 50-some minutes was momentous and fortuitous and serendipitous. It drew, as if from a bottomless well, a tidal wave of nostalgia from me to ‘go back’ because she’s amazing. But, in the way-back, even one on one I didn’t feel a real connection to most ‘friends’, never mind work acquaintances which were the only acquaintances I had because work seemed to be my whole life, my whole me. I wouldn’t have had any of them on the “pick me up on the side of the road at 3 a.m. list”. Looking back, it wasn’t them who didn’t connect. It was me because I didn’t feel worthy of them then, but I know better now. Maria’s that friend, whether I’m worthy or not.

Rethinking my self-worth, she’s not the only one who just became my friend overnight. I have a veritable shit-ton (look it up it’s a lot) of friends. Lots of people who would go out of their way for me without complaint, and for this I am grateful, happy, and rich. I wish you all a pile of good friends on this rainy Friday eve.

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