Well everyone, sit back, relax, and grab some snacks because we’re in for a bumpy ride with this post. First of all I’d just like to say that this has been a long time coming. It’s about time that I let all this crap out as opposed to locking it up inside, and since I love for my problems to be known to everyone else…ha…I figure I’ll do it on this blog. (Really I just don’t want anyone else to make the same mistakes and you should all take this example into account in your own lives). So I was standing in the shower this morning, just thinking about everything as I normally do, and my mind wandered to a subject it had not touched on for a few weeks now. It was a matter of friendship, or more appropriately, the loss thereof.
So in life, friendship is very important. I’m writing that as a statement because I’m fairly sure I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who disagreed with it, and if they did it would probably be for a terrible and saddening reason. So if friendship is very important, losing someone’s friendship can be one of the worst catastrophes in life. I completely agree with this statement as well, but I have encountered something much worse than just losing someone’s friendship. I have encountered losing your friend, but the friendship remaining intact. You’re probably asking yourself how that can possibly happen, and a while ago I would have been with you. The predicament I speak of is an empty friendship. A hollowed out version of the happiness you once shared with that individual. As an example, I’ll pan out a theoretical encounter between two such people.
Say you’re walking down the hallway to class and you see your friend sitting outside the door waiting for it to be unlocked. Now a few months ago you would have walked up to them with a smile on your face and talked about how both your days had been going and when you were going to hang out next. You might even have exchanged an inside joke or two in the process. However, this time you calculate that since the door is locked you will be forced to make conversation with them instead of just giving a casual head nod and continuing on your way as you have been doing since your friend disappeared. You exchange formalities such as “Hey, whatsup?” and a “Not too much, how about you?” and then a sigh of relief escapes your lips as the teacher unlocks the door and lets you inside. This is what your “friendship” has become. You still feel obligated to be polite to one another, but the spark, the happiness that lit the relationship before, has gone out.
I have never experienced anything as frustrating, or as deeply depressing to me as this situation. I find that I have retreated away from my lost friend. Since summer has come around I haven’t been forced to make contact or even exchange formalities anymore. It’s almost like that friend was only a dream from long ago. This upsets me even more than the fact that I lost my friend. The worst part is that I didn’t do anything about it. I took the whole thing personally and let my hurt cancel out the longing to make peace and restore my friend to the amazing friendship we once had. In essence, I let it go without a fight. I was too wrapped up in my own feelings to reach out and really be a friend instead of mourning the loss of mine. This is the mistake I spoke of earlier. My mistake wasn’t being friends with this person before, and it wasn’t continuing the hollow friendship that was left behind, it was letting that FRIEND, not the friendship, slowly slip away while I nursed my own wounds instead of reaching out a hand and letting them know “I’m here for you, I’m your friend.”
Friendship is important, but your FRIENDS are what make the friendship what it is.
-Dave
