I’m not trying to steal BiPM’s gig here or anything. But as I crafted my entry for today’s C&J over yonder at DailyKos, it began to seem a shame to bury it in a giant discussion full of C&Js.
This particular C&J was born of sadness, lack of sleep and having just watched Being Julia, with the splendid Annette Bening.
Why the latter, you ask? Well… Lemme see, how do I ‘splain this? You ever watch a fine performance in, say, a period piece — and for a while thereafter find yourself speaking in the manner of the film’s dialogue? Affecting, say, an accent, or a particularly formal prose for a few hours?
I’m always amused by this phenomenon in me. Sometimes it’s as subtle an affectation as walking like a character in the film.
Anyway, I didn’t bury my own voice completely in this little foray, but the film, and Bening’s performance in particular, did colour my turns of phrase. I found it quite diverting.
There’s virtually nothing political about this piece, so pass it by if that’s what you’re looking for. Nor is it a rant. I may be chided by the Boo Dude for abusing my front page privileges on this jaunt, and perhaps rightly so. I am a very irresponsible “Front Pager” here at the Trib; haven’t contributed nearly anything like regular posts.
In my defense, I did warn our fair host of my irregularity and aversion to anything resembling quotas, deadlines or standards…
Someone once told me that if I reached the end of my life and could count my True Friends on one hand, I’d be very, very lucky. Well, here I am in what is, ostensibly, the middle of my life (unless I am missing some vital piece of information), and I can, indeed, count my True Friends (my Kindred Spirits, as Anne of Green Gables would say) on one hand – just. Jonna is in Traverse City, Anne-Marie in Grand Rapids, Christopher lives in Manhattan, Mary makes her home in Chicago, and now there’s Jessica in Austin. Which brings me to…
JEERS
Jessica moved back to Austin yesterday and I sobbed and sobbed from the moment we parted. I do count myself lucky to have such a beautiful coterie of friends, I do. But I have to admit to feeling just the teensiest bit unlucky, as well. They’re all so far away, you see. And here I am in California, in what may officially be termed my late thirties… alone again. Naturally. And I really don’t know if I’ll be able to find another Kindred Spirit here. I’m simply too worn out and too impatient to go through that “get to know each other and if the stars are properly aligned discover a friend for life” routine. It’s exhausting, and too often disappointing.
Oh, I have “lunch” friends. But no one here to really talk to, no one who knows me inside and out and still loves me, loves me in spite of it all and because of it all. Worse… no one I love like that. Email, telephones – we say we’ll keep in touch, but we won’t, not really. Every few months we’ll have a good talk, but the times between them will grow longer. Of course, whenever I see one of these dearest, beloved friends, it’s as if no time has passed at all. But it doesn’t do a bit of good on a day-to-day basis. It’s simply not the same as being in the same town; no one to meet at Wednesday matinees and gossip with about the stars – or, if the movie’s really good, fall into deep discussion with about the meaning of it all. Ah, me. Lucky and unlucky, all at once. Ain’t that just the way?
CHEERS
There’s no earthly reason it should taste better than any other kind of iced tea… but there it is.
JEERS
DO most people really prefer SWEETENED iced tea? How ghastly. Whenever I find it unsweetened, I buy up all the bottles in the store. Most times, however, I stalk up to the coolers and search in vain. Oh, Snapple makes every possible variety of iced tea, god knows; who could have imagined how many goddamned flavours of sweetened fucking tea there would be? And no room left to spare for the simple, elegant, refreshing and UNSWEETENED iced tea? Apparently not. Lipton makes the best bottled iced tea, unsweetened; but all too often the stores stock their lemon-flavoured, sweetened tea… and neglects those of us who prefer it sans sugar – or, god forbid, artificial sweetener. Heathens. Pagans. Savages.
CHEERS
That’s what they call it in AA: when the bitterest complaint you can utter in the course of a day is that you simply cannot find bottled, unsweetened iced tea… your life, my darling, does not suck.
JEERS
But of course, the bitterest complaints go unremarked, don’t they? Alone in the deep, dark, desperate hours of the night, oh, my dear, the anguished tears you swallow, lest you wake the child you love and the man you adore. I suppose it’s a natural part of life, to reach the end of the middle and realise how many chances one has missed; how life simply went in one direction and you with it, while your dreams and plans and hopes faded into the distance, back at that fateful fork in the goddamned road. And it seems so ungrateful to bemoan the loss, when what you have is so lovely, so worthwhile, so enviable by so many who would leap at the chance to live your life.
So you keep it to yourself; you don’t even write it in your journals, for fear they be read upon your death and misinterpreted as a repudiation of the life you’ve led. And it doesn’t really matter all that much, as the days bleed into one another and pass into years, decades. It’s only when a certain piece of piano music happens to play when you’ve had too little too eat and missed a nap and run yourself ragged all day that it catches you unawares… and you slip into the delicious melancholy of nostalgia and regret.
It passes. It always does.
“Grandpa, if you added up every single second, every moment of true joy I’ve had in my life, I doubt they’d add up to more than a couple hours.”
Grandpa kept on rocking as he gazed off into the riotous colours of the evening sky and said,
“Ayup. Precious, aren’t they?”
And finally…
CHEERS
You just feel free to let me have it, dear. I know I’m a terrible Front Pager…
But you were warned.
Cute kid. Thoughtful piece.
It’s fabulous, wonderful, spirited. The time between doesn’t matter. It’s when you post that matters.
And, my god, what a beautiful child! It’s hard being a mom but aren’t there times when you just pinch yourself over how lucky your are to have the chance to be with this precious boy.
Actually, your timing was impeccable. I fell asleep for several hours, and you posted in my absence.
Your child is beautiful, as are you ;). And I’m happy to see you writing longer pieces again. I know you’ve been feeling crappy for a while, and I hope you are feeling better, and more expansive.
I have a feeling that whenever Rehnquist retires, we’ll see a little jolt of energy from the MSOC corner… hoping anyway 😉
that regret, that celebrate, that defend, that stand up with open arms, that rage, that embrace – all of ’em are just trying to do what they think they gotta do to keep us whole and safe and happy and fulfilled.
It gets pretty messy sometimes, and it seems to take so much more fucking time than it should, but I guess that’s just how it is, so we might as well acknowledge and appreciate and thank and love them so that we can get on with it.
Time to go to bed – it was a long night.
Who says the front pagers always have to write about politics. This is so beautifully written and touched me deeply. I too have been through the friendships cycle. MS, I am 53 and I have a handful of friends that I have had for well over 30 years but we are spread out all over the USA. Since I moved to California three years ago, I really have no one close that I can spill my guts too or sob on their shoulder or whine til they tell me to stfu. In the infamous words of GWB, “It’s hard work” to make friends. I have a sister that has moved probably twenty times in fifteen years and each place she lives she has a knack of making friends. I just don’t know how she does it.
I know for me that I have so often put my personal emotions, hurts and pains to the bottom of the list to deal with because I am so busy being outraged against our current state of affairs. I know I often have to take a step back away from the computer, the tv, the newspapers and take time for me.
Your son is precious and we all need to cherish the moments we have with our families, children, grand children. My beautiful grand daughter who is eight and I went to the Del Mar Fair last night and saw Kelly Clarkson(not a favorite of mine but of hers) and it was so much fun to watch her express herself to the music and dance and sing along. We went on the rides and played games and I spent way too much money but God it is so worth it to have these times with her, just the two of us.
Remember MS, and I know that you know this, This too shall pass.
Nobody has any idea how close to the edge of a full-on psychological collapse I really dance most of the time.
Anhedonia has descended, the first concrete evidence of an inexorable inner shift to low-grade depression in its transition to mid-grade depression, with, to follow, the Abyss.
I’m already medicated, and it works. But occasionally there must be, come hell or Zoloft, a brief but potent surrender to “episodes” of deep depression. I think that is a function of an emotional tendency to depression, rather than the physiological chemical imbalance that is ameliorated by medication. Some aspects of our behaviour must be allowed their fair share of the causalities of depression.
At any rate, one benefit of the aging process is that it affords me a vast panorama of the Past to which to refer. Finally, I have stumbled into a stage of life that includes being able to reference the past and say to ourselves, “Ah, yes. I have been here before, and despite the overwhelming sense that it will never end, never improve, it does, in fact, improve and end. Any inclinations toward suicide that I might feel are to be regarded as a natural emotional and psychological response to a distorted perspective. But distorted it is, and if I remind myself of this constantly when in the throes of a seemingly irreparable depression, I can at least deliver myself a modicum of relief to dilute the fear and anguish.”
Such is my state of mind and soul right now. I am trying to learn from the demon, rather than allow it to cripple me for howsoever long it resides within me.
It is so hard to lose a close friend, especially when you are balanced on that fragile edge of emotion, looking over a downward slope. I hope the terrain will flatten out and rise above you, MSO.
I resonate to your struggles for a couple of reasons. They are quite personally familiar, and I’m a mental health researcher. You’ve learned a lot about yourself, which is very good, and you’ll learn more. Those who do often find that the abyss grows more shallow over time, and the walls of it less steep, less unpredictable. You will learn more.
Meanwhile, I hope you will take good care of yourself. No, dammit, I mean better care of yourself – whatever that is. That’s a demand of living with the “darker demon”, as I call it. Frankly, I’m not certain that reading pessimistic political blogs is the best thing when the abyss beckons, either. Keep pushing back!
I can relate with many of your words as I too felt that way and can it seem still descend into occasional forays into depression, but thankfully now they are very short lived.
At 62 I had a looking back perspective of life, constantly judging myself over and over for all of my previous failings…That was until I met Shirlstars and she reminded me that I should not look at my past in a judgemental way, but rather a series of experiences that have shaped the me that is today. If you leave judgement out, it makes quite a different perspective and one I am able to confidently deal with.
I know that when you are in the depths of dispair it is difficult to hear words being shouted from the cliffs above, but there are still those shouting, we love you and we want you to be happy, we share your pains for we all have them, look up and see us here and join us please for there is comfort and solace awaiting you..and much applause for the life you have lived.
“That was until I met Shirlstars and she reminded me that I should not look at my past in a judgmental way, but rather a series of experiences that have shaped the me that is today. If you leave judgment out, it makes quite a different perspective and one I am able to confidently deal with.”
Yes!! If we look at everything as a learning experience that has shaped who we are right now without judging ourselves, then we would probably not want to miss any of it, because who knows exactly which experiences were the ones that really defined us and made us who we are today? It all has an influence on the present, consciously and unconsciously.
It brings to mind the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” where people are having certain memories erased that they find painful. In the process, one finds he really treasures everything and fights to keep the memories.
You have said this so beautifully, but it reminded me of a bit of profound wisdom I got from a friend of mine years ago. She said that “one of the best things about getting older is that you can start to see the cycles in life.” It does put perspective on things to know that a down time does cycle on and those precious moments of joy pop up every now and then. At 51 I continue to appreciate every year I get older for the wisdom it brings. I know my physical body is starting to show the signs of aging, but my soul is still growing up.
To me this is like going through and coming out the other side. It seems there is a cycle that has to finish, like a washing machine that cleans us so we can start fresh again.
Maybe it is to help us remember what we treasure and enjoy, so we don’t take it for granted when we feel the total joy that occasionally sneaks up on us and grabs us when we are least expecting it. A sort of gift, that many people don’t have, that shows us a wider range of peaks and valleys of emotions and views.
This too shall pass… it’s all change…
Ah, MSOC… I’m reaching the early stages of the moving-away-soul-sistas.
Off they all go, but mostly in one direction… NorthWest. And we too are thinking of going that way soon… the whole tribe seems to be migrating in that direction so… perhaps we will follow with wagons in tow.
But don’t forget the mediums we have to contact one another. Phone calls, sure, easy and relatively affordable, depending on whither the family has wandered… but too, and so forgotten these days is the letter. The pen and ink, in your handwritting, stamped and sent out letter. No one WRITES anymore, and email, though faster, sometimes, isn’t the same. No angle to the words, no blurred letters from droplets of tears, no quickened scribbling when the words start coming all at once.
I find that when I miss my tribe… so much it hurts… I send them each a letter.
I’m lucky though… my wedding in two weeks (AHHH, TWO WEEKS!!!) will bring them all back around again. If only it were someone else’s wedding so that I could REALLY absorb them all, breathe them in like the honeysuckled breeze in the evening.
I saw this over there and tried to post a comment, but alas, it disappeared. I think I have to use the second hand to count the friends, and I am so grateful for them.
I am also very grateful for this invention that allows me to remain in contact so easily. Even voice and video are possible, woo hoo!
But, the hugs are just not as satisfactory.
From one 1968-er (is that a noun?) to another: I have sometimes struggled with very similar thoughts myself. Isn’t it interesting – and I am pretty sure about this – that we could/would have exactly the same regrets 20 years from now at 57, except that we would then think that being 37 was so young and curse that we didn’t know better at that age. We didn’t realize that full careers can be started at 37 and/or completely new directions in life could have been explored.
I don’t want to be 57 and regret not being 37 again with a life full of possibilities. This keeps me going. Now, if I could only organize myself to actually plunge into one such adventure or another…
“I wish I could play the piano.”
“So? take lessons and learn how.”
“Oh, for god’s sake. I’m __ years old. Do you know how old I’d be before I could actually play?”
“How old will you be by then if you don’t take lessons and learn how to play?”
And the very best part of it is that it is TRUE. I had my only age crisis when I turned 30. . .all that “I should have, could have, ought to have. . .by now”, nonsense.
So here I am at 65 about to get my PhD, about to publish two books, and certainly headed full steam ahead to a new career. What career? It doesn’t have a name, or a classifier, or a label and it doesn’t need one, because for the first time in my life I really know what I am doing. Ha! I could view the last 60 odd years as “wasted” or “mis-used”, or I can view them as I choose to, experiences that fully shaped the who of who I am.
And friends? Well, wouldn’t you know it, I have gathered a core group around me, with only one of them close enough physically to actually drop in and visit with. But the group of us gather together at least once a year somewhere (8 of us) twice a year if we can swing it. We want it to never end, of course. . .but we keep in touch from all over the US. . .and the world by phone and emails and planning the next get together. It doesn’t have to fall away if you make up your minds to keep it as important as it is. I have 3 or 4 friends that we have kept up with each other for 40 years now, we just don’t let it fade out of the picture, it is too important.
So know that friends can stick, even though the distances arise.
It said: It is not yet too late to take a different path.
You will always be getting older, why not do what you want and ignore your age. If you body lets you, do anything you feel like.
I had a 90 year old student in my human development class. 90! He was terrific.
just lovely. Thanks for sharing the photo of yourself and your precious son. It has cheered my day.
Damndest thing about that handful of close friends — I had them but, one by one, they all went and died before me! Now, here I am 57 years old and I’ve got to round up another handful ASAP.
You’re not drinking sweet tea, darlin.
Here in the southern part of heaven, there is no other tea . . . which is zackly as it should be. Sweet.
Love,
Anglico + Elizabeth James
Great post. Thank you for reminding me about the important things in life!
Sometimes I wonder if the Carolinas haven’t taken over the whole nation for as difficult as it can be to get unsweetened tea. Luckily, here in New York City you can get the best tea in a bottle EVER, Tea’s Tea (http://www.itoen.com/tea/index.cfm). I highly recommend it. How can one be refreshed by that sickening added sugar (or should I say sucrose or corn syrup)?
Also, I feel you about the long-distance friends thing. I often feel completely alone in the largest city in the nation. Ironic, huh? My truest friends live scattered across a handful of cities in the Midwest and randomly elsewhere. The good news? I’m going to see a bunch of them next week on a swing through KC and St. Louis.
I actually meant to say high-fructose corn syrup which is a long running scam as the government props up price-fixing Archer Daniels Midland to make sugar we don’t need (and which is bad for us)…
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html
http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html
http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2004/02/01.html
see, we can make this a political thread after all.
I saw this over there too, and responded in that clumsy, inarticulate way of mine.
The most comfort I can draw from times when I feel exactly like you is that I am not alone in my craziness, or discontent, or even my dark thoughts.
Life is a cycle, my depression is a cycle and just that knowledge helps me a lot when I feel that inevitable slide downhill. It will get better. Hope will come back and sit on your shoulder.
Somehow it is a comfort to know we can be crazy, together.
Thanks Maryscott, you always make me remember to be grateful.
Far away friends can visit.
I just talked with my high-school girl-friend on the phone for one hour. For two months she was in the near east caring for her new grand-child and his family. Now she is back in Canada and planning to visit me in September. I’m going to get my spare bike tuned up for her. We’ll go biking around to the beaches and parks.
Whenever we get together she makes me laugh just like in high school where she was the class clown. Her favourite trick is to wait until my mouth is full and then say something outrageous.
When my kids saw us together on her last visit, they remarked that they had never seen me laugh so much. Their father was the ‘life-of-the-party’ type but not so funny as my friend.
Many blessings on you and your family.
Food (and tea) for thought. Friends, it certainly is harder the older you get. I have a friend of long standing and we only live a few miles apart and it is still too few the times we get together. But e-mail does at least keep us in regular contact.
Opportunites lost, we must move on and not regret them. The choices we make seemed right at the time. But you’re right, we do get carried along with the current to a large degree. (Are we really making choices, or does it just seem that way?) I wouldn’t give up anything for my beautiful 6 year old son. MSOC, I’m about 10 years older than you. Believe me, down the road you will find that things have gone in the right direction. You will wonder how things might have been different if you made different choices but you will not have regrets for the ones you made.
Oh BTW, I loved the presweetened blackberry iced tea I had at Chili’s the other night. 😉
of a fabulous Katharine Hepburn interview with Dick Cavett that ran over 2 nights back in the 70s.
Cavett asked Hepburn, if she could travel back in time and give her younger self any piece of advice, what would it be?
Hepburn’s reply, paraphrased:
“I’d tell her, stop WORRYING so much! EVerything is going to work out JUST fine. You’re wasting so much of your life on anxiety and regret and needless worry! Just get on with it!”
That was a VERY liberal paraphrasing, based as it is not so much on Hepburn’s actual reply but from the message I took from it.
came early to the set, rearranged all the furniture,
gave orders, rehearsed her sitting arrangement (she had
a bad leg), made sure her best side was angled to the
camera? It was so typical Hepburn that Dick Cavett
asked her permission to air the pre-interview tape.
She never doubted her equality with men, strike that, superiority over men.
Maryscott,
As a sister sufferer of both the cycles of depression and the fact that friends are scattered, I feel this. It also reminds me very much of this wonderful book I read about creativity and depression, specifically, writing. THE MIDNIGHT DISEASE by Alice Flaherty is this wonderful meditation and scientific examination of the drive to write and the need to be comforted. She’s a neurologist and a writer, and I found the book of enormous interest as it seemed to address these two parallel drives in my life: writing and crying. 🙂
I’m sending thoughts your way.
from faux or badly misled Southerners above: Never never drink pre-sweetened tea, unless you make it for yourself.
And frankly, my dear, about that bottled tea. It isn’t tea. It is a tea-like liquid. Fine for you to self-deceive about it being tea(after all, that’s a sign of good self-concept, to self-deceive a little). But you know the truth.
Real tea is made with tea leaves, hot water, and steeped a while. Then, if you want to bottle it up, do so. In a desperate situation, buy Lipton’s bottle tea-like drink.
If you were here I’d give you the Wilson women’s historic iced tea, which has not gone near sugar until it is placed beside the sugar bowl. The steeped tea is strained and poured over ice. The ice is NOT to be dropped into the water, as Yankees up here where I currently live tend to do.
Best served with fresh peach pie or lacking peaches, pecan or cherry pie. Ice cream optional. If feeling very Southern, go get a piece of mint from the garden to garnish the tea.
And thanks for the opportunity to give an almost recipe without having to have a revolting troll surface!
does the Sun Tea in the jar, using two bags of black tea of some sort (Lipton in a pinch, but usually one of Twinings’ teas like English Breakfast or Earl Grey), then two bags of an herbal (like Peppermint or Orange Spice). Almost sweet enough that no sugar is needed.
Hmmm…better get my jar out on the patio while we’ve still got the sun…
We did sun tea, too.
I recommend Bailey’s Tea – a great, but hard to find Irish tea. Also good are English Breakfast. If you like the flavorings, I think the peppermint or Constant Comment are good choices.
Oh, and here the clouds are out and night is falling! Maybe tomorrow. Why didn’t I do this yesterday when it was in the 90’s?
What a delightful surprise to find you on the front page here at BMT!
I don’t know if it’s any comfort, but in addition to the friends “you can count on one hand” please know that there are countless others here in the blogosphere who have often been moved by your words and consider you a true cyberfriend.
This is true: I was just thinking of you last night, and hoping to someday be a fraction of the writer you are.
Please take care and come by again soon.
PS: I also hate sweetened tea. Went to a fast food drive through earlier this week and they had “iced tea” and “sweet tea” on the menu. I ordered “iced tea” but got back to the office to found out I had been given the other. 😛
It’s the simple things that sometimes help me throught the biggest trials of my life.
Tazo tea makes a wonderful unsweetened tea – and it’s NOT a sponsor of Rush 🙂
Beautiful work!
from one chick in her late thirties… My life is sometimes slowly sipped, other times it spills down my shirt while I take in huge gulps… but it’s the bittersweetness that seems to be my cup of tea – it’s where I learn my most valuable and humbling lessons.
I wake up in the night… ready to cry sometimes… wondering what’s in order for my oldest child… can I live long enough to care for him??…
But then I fall back asleep realizing that EVERY parent wakes up with the same startles and fears and worries.
I fall back asleep after I’ve gone in and taken the bittersweet taste of looking in after both my children.
Thank you so much for sharing your days and thoughts here.
I don’t know how old your kids are. Mine are 24, 20, 17 and 15….and I still watch them sleep sometimes, though opportunities are somewhat limited as you can imagine!
It is bittersweet. They look like angels even though they might be 6 feet tall and have a soul patch on their chins…and they still look so damn sweet and so damn vulnerable. It is precisely that sweetness and vulnerability that still elicits that sudden silent rush of tears from their crazy mom.
Mine are just 12 and 10. My oldest is autistic and this week has been a bit of a “hair puller”.
His sister is at the movies with a friend and he and I are once again reminded that no matter what – I always seem to be his best friend. It hurts him so much to be left behind and the phone rarely rings for him even though he runs to pick it up.
I got to the the reasons for living section, scrolled down and burst into tears….you are both so beautiful!
I was just telling some of my co-students at T’ai Chi that these days, I am oscillating between a non-stop-empathy trip and complete numb, apathy and the only time I remotely feel balanced is when I’m with my kids (two boys, one 6, and one who will be 2 on 8/5)….
As lorraine said, “writing and crying”, only for the last several months I have been doing too much of the latter and not nearly enough of the former.
Please, please let Jessica know that she can call me ANY time — I would love to meet her, and through her you, but most importantly, just to be here for her, in Austin, if she needs someone….
caiteclare@yahoo.com — pass it on to her, if you think she would like to get in touch.
Does every single food that we consume have to have sugar in it? Spaghetti sauce? Fruit juice? (It’s sweet already, jackasses…that ‘Sunny D’ shit makes me puke) Bread? (okay, maybe a little) Crackers?
Furthermore, any parent who serves their child soda pop should be sent immediately to jail. Can’t drink alcohol until you’re 21, can’t drink soda until you’re 18…
Okay, sweetness has its place, but processed sugar is like more addicting than cocaine…just say no…molasses, fruit juice, turbinado sugar, maple syrup…there are alternatives, folks!
(Thanks for allowing me to rant, MSOC!)
the republicans sit around their computers and bare their souls and comfort each other like this? We are such a great bunch of bleeding heart liberals that honestly care for each other, site unseen, having never met face to face. I know I could probably email a large portion of this community and ask for help. We really are blessed.
And Mary Scott, I admire the knowledge and the handle you have on your depression. I also admire your willingness to honor the darkness it brings for I can see that it has made you one hell of a strong woman. You are amazing!May we all learn from you.
so fuck Rove, we do seek better understand of all our fellow humans.
A name filled with poetry, from a soul filled with feeling. Such a lovely treat to see your eloquent words here this morning. I try to catch you on DK when I have the time, but I have been missing you a lot lately. Thanks for the fix of thoughtful and meaningful expression.
You are loved here, and we envy your close friends the opportunities for proximaty. No, it isn’t exactly the same. . .but I, for one, find wonderful enjoyment of the many sides of MSOC. All that you show us of the depth of your being brings us in closer to warm ourselves at the hearth of your heart.
Thanks for sharing your beautiful words, your thoughts and the beautiful pictures of you and your son.
You have made my day. . .so thank you.
Hugs
Shirl
It was amazing reading your thoughts about long distance friends. Its so true. My family moved every couple of years while I was growing up. I always had to day goodbye to my “best friend” and we would promise to write, keep in touch and be friends forever. Then within a few months, that would not be happening and I’d feel all alone again. The last time this happened to me was after high school and I think I just got hardened and haven’t had a really close friend since then.
That is until a few months ago. For several years I have been part of a book group of seven women that meets monthly. We have been really good friends “as a group” but not individually. Then a couple of months ago one of our members lost her sister to colon cancer, ended her marriage and was diagnosed with lung cancer all in one months time. This group has rallied around her like nothing I have ever seen before. As a matter of fact, I’m leaving in a few minutes to take dinner to her house and visit for awhile. There are wonderful things in all of this for me. First of all, she says she KNOWS we are helping her fight off the cancer – what higher calling could there ever be in life?? And secondly, I have had a chance to see the kind of support I would have if I ever really needed it. So I feel my old walls breaking down and finally experiencing real friendship again. This is one of those precious moments of joy for me.
I enjoy MSO’s comments. So it’s cool that she’s now on the front page.