30 January 2008
♥ i guess being left behind is what this year is all about.
There was a miserable if rather short-lived period in my life when I had myself completely convinced that love did not exist. If everything is always changing, I rationalized, how could this be reconciled with love, that which is supposed to be forever, unconditional, without limits or boundaries? How could war and torture and the suffering of mankind at the hands of other men be justified? Why do half of all marriages today end in divorce?
Since then, I have learned some valuable lessons. I don't think it's fair to say that love doesn't exist, because despite that it cannot be rationalized or attached to a number or beaten to death at the hands of logic, it is one of the few things in this mixed-up world that makes any sense at all. More than 50% of marriages in the United States will end before death does us part, but haven't my parents stayed together for more than a quarter of a century? Don't babies find homes when before they had no place, don't people find their niches, don't we feel compassion for those who are not as lucky as us?
More than any of that, though, I am having a hard time understanding friendship. It is more universal than anything I can imagine; friendships can be formed under the direst or the best of circumstances. But just as when romance is involved, these relationships require more maintenance after a few years or months than they did in the beginning.
Maybe I invest my fragile little heart more than I should, but friendship these days seems as complex and nonsensical as ever. The end of a relationship has caused me to feel more heartbroken than I ever thought possible, more than I ever thought I could again, but I was wrong. The heartbreak that comes with the end of a friendship is just as bad, maybe worse, than losing a boyfriend. After a heinous breakup, who cheers us up? Our friends, of course. The people that are always there for us. But when we lose a friend, what is left? The simple truth of the matter is that girls are too catty to just sympathize without negativity. The boys that leave us are, of course, not good enough for us, but when our friends leave us, there is no explanation of comparable simplicity.
I often slip into bitterness about the friends I wasn't good enough for, but then I remember that things have a way of working themselves out. Disloyalty has brought about the end of more than one friendship, but sometimes we find a friend who remains loyal to us long after we have used up all plausible chances, because their love for us is unconditional. Kayla and I have screwed up more times than I think either of us cares to recall, but nearly a decade later, I still consider her my other half. I don't know what I would do without the best friend with whom I have laughed, cried, and experienced every emotion in between.
Perhaps the problem is that more than friendship, I have a hard time understanding people. I would be a hypocrite if I asked "Why all the sneaking around?" because I've done my fair share of that to avoid conflict and confrontation. But what happens when you have a friend who is so pathologically terrified of confrontation that they simply won't tell you when they're mad? As shitty as it feels to confront a friend or to be confronted by one, in the end I've learned that it solves a lot more than can be accomplished by telling everyone else that you're mad.
In fact, I guess I can answer my own question. What happens is, your friendship with that person begins to implode, until neither of you answers the other's calls, until you are both bitter and angry, until neither of you understands how it began in the first place. So how do we go about fixing a problem like this? There's no such thing as "no more secrets." You can't force someone to change.
I don't know where to go from here, because for the first time in my life, I can't just do what I normally do: I can't ask my friends for help.
Since then, I have learned some valuable lessons. I don't think it's fair to say that love doesn't exist, because despite that it cannot be rationalized or attached to a number or beaten to death at the hands of logic, it is one of the few things in this mixed-up world that makes any sense at all. More than 50% of marriages in the United States will end before death does us part, but haven't my parents stayed together for more than a quarter of a century? Don't babies find homes when before they had no place, don't people find their niches, don't we feel compassion for those who are not as lucky as us?
More than any of that, though, I am having a hard time understanding friendship. It is more universal than anything I can imagine; friendships can be formed under the direst or the best of circumstances. But just as when romance is involved, these relationships require more maintenance after a few years or months than they did in the beginning.
Maybe I invest my fragile little heart more than I should, but friendship these days seems as complex and nonsensical as ever. The end of a relationship has caused me to feel more heartbroken than I ever thought possible, more than I ever thought I could again, but I was wrong. The heartbreak that comes with the end of a friendship is just as bad, maybe worse, than losing a boyfriend. After a heinous breakup, who cheers us up? Our friends, of course. The people that are always there for us. But when we lose a friend, what is left? The simple truth of the matter is that girls are too catty to just sympathize without negativity. The boys that leave us are, of course, not good enough for us, but when our friends leave us, there is no explanation of comparable simplicity.
I often slip into bitterness about the friends I wasn't good enough for, but then I remember that things have a way of working themselves out. Disloyalty has brought about the end of more than one friendship, but sometimes we find a friend who remains loyal to us long after we have used up all plausible chances, because their love for us is unconditional. Kayla and I have screwed up more times than I think either of us cares to recall, but nearly a decade later, I still consider her my other half. I don't know what I would do without the best friend with whom I have laughed, cried, and experienced every emotion in between.
Perhaps the problem is that more than friendship, I have a hard time understanding people. I would be a hypocrite if I asked "Why all the sneaking around?" because I've done my fair share of that to avoid conflict and confrontation. But what happens when you have a friend who is so pathologically terrified of confrontation that they simply won't tell you when they're mad? As shitty as it feels to confront a friend or to be confronted by one, in the end I've learned that it solves a lot more than can be accomplished by telling everyone else that you're mad.
In fact, I guess I can answer my own question. What happens is, your friendship with that person begins to implode, until neither of you answers the other's calls, until you are both bitter and angry, until neither of you understands how it began in the first place. So how do we go about fixing a problem like this? There's no such thing as "no more secrets." You can't force someone to change.
I don't know where to go from here, because for the first time in my life, I can't just do what I normally do: I can't ask my friends for help.
1/30/2008
