Okay, I'm going to take a break from my usual daily planner + descriptive whining-style post and write, in response to Kat (hey if you don't want me calling you that tell me, I don't know why I started it even!) and write about adult friendships, as I have been thinking a lot about them too lately... She went to a seminar and it was one of the topics, so, Der 3eitgeist I guess!
The Proximity Effect
Before friendships become close, they must begin. Before, like, the internet, that wasn't even possible, to meet someone who wasn't right there. When I was a little kid, like 5, I had friends and I had best friends, and I don't remember choosing them. My parents chose them, sometimes based on their opinion of their parents (and then sometimes banished them when that opinion changed...) I don't remember anything before 5, I hardly remember anything before 10, and we moved schools a lot, but my friend from kindergarten Sharon is THE BOMB. She was my best friend for years, even after we switched elementary schools and I moved a couple towns over, and then we lost touch because my mom decided her family was low-class and she couldn't come over anymore... Which is horrible. Luckily I got back in touch with her on Myspace or something several years ago and she's still ama3ing, and god even though we live such different lives, we think the same way, and it's so important for me to have someone that KNEW me then, that remembers me, that recogni3ed things about me when I was six years old that I'd completely lost sight of... She is tough and funny and no nonsense and small-town working class but her mind is open to all corners of the universe and she's bright and outspoken and REAL and caring and JUST, she has character, and she loves her family, and she's just ama3ing.
But yeah, when I was like 11 I couldn't see her anymore... I had another parentally imposed friend, Carly, whose parents were later dismissed in the same way and my mom again tried to limit her coming over even though she really is the sweetest, most conventional, harmless girl. I like her, and I still talk to her, but our lives are different too, which doesn't matter, but our souls are very different, and I don't think she understands me, nor I her, but we still love each other.
But then around that age I started making my own friends in school, and started being aware of social things... I wasn't shy... I was always nice, a little on the outside, because it was a small town and my family didn't fit in. My parents didn't fit it, and didn't have any friends, and my brother didn't fit it... he was really quiet and he had one friend and he was a good student, and he was picked on. And I have no idea how much, cu3 it was never that bad... Well I don't know... it might've been worse than I thought...
But I made myself fit in, though it broke my heart at times and drained me of energy to do so... I had a little group in sixth and seventh grade, we used to have sleepovers every weekend, and make christmas cookies, and go into "town" to go shopping, and play ouija and stuff... We were all pretty creative... Hillary, Julia, Carly and me, and occasionally Allison, or Caroline, or Georgia. Hillary and I were kind of the leaders... and the most "popular" cu3 she played sports I guess, and a lot of boys liked me. And we started getting together alone more often... And we'd get invited to parties... And I guess we started caring... And one day, in the cafeteria, I can't even remember; I blocked it out; I didn't say anything I remember, but Hillary kind of told Julia something... and the two of us went and sat somewhere else... at a more "popular" table...
And then I was alone. I had a lot of friends, and made a lot more, but it was different, but that group in which I was so myself, that state of being so myself, was gone, for a long, long time...
Then high school and all about boys and playing at being a grownup and then adulthood and making new friends from different places, much older, with interesting jobs, and bohemian, and everything changed, those are the adult friendships...
I will to be continued as well...
I like what you said about having different souls. All we ever really want is someone who really "gets" us, you know? And it's so unusual to find someone who has enough in common with you that you can even become friends, and yet has the same soul. Because sometimes the people who are most like you in mind don't have much in common in life. and vice versa, I guess.
ReplyDeleteand how you stop being yourself when you lose the friends you were yourself with. I relate to that a lot too.
We have a lot in common, even though we don't. :)
Kat is cool. And, I like getting to know you too.
I was just having a conversation about friendships. I was being hard on myself because I haven't really established any close relationships since I moved...and I've been here a year and a half. My friend said that he thought it was harder to form close relationships when you're an adult. The ties that bind us (in many cases the huge input from parents/school/etc.) no longer exist. I think he might be right...at least to some extent. It's definitely not as easy because in many cases the situations under which friendships develop don't occur as frequently. Or maybe that's just my experience.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned proximity--oddly enough--the friend I was having this discussion with? I met through the my blog. Despite that fact that we've only met once (he lives in NYC), he's one of my closest friends...I feel like I've known him forever. It's kind of funny. Him being one of my "closest" friends yet being so far away...