Friends.
When I was younger, I had the certain impression that close friendships looked a particular way, followed a particular (nearly predictable) pattern, were cast in a similar mold…and that the presence of these signposts in a friendship meant that it was true and good and close and significant. So, for instance, a good friend was one whose house was always open to you…you could simply stop by on your way home from the supermarket for a cup of coffee…or a glass of wine…and a chat. You checked in by phone daily…first thing in the morning perhaps, just to see how the day was shaping up for the other. And you grabbed the phone immediately if there was a personal crisis at hand, if only to offer up into the receiver that wail of anguish that you knew would send the friend running at once to your side for a full debriefing and requisite hand-holding. That was pretty much my vision of close friendship. Perhaps it still is.
Problem is, none of my friendships resemble that vision. Not one.
I did once have a friend who worked in the same English department, whose house was always open to me. It was located half-way between the college where we taught and my own house, and I often stopped by for a glass of wine on my way home. I even knew where she kept the wine glasses: lovely, green depression-glass goblets, which sat on the top shelf of her china cabinet in the dining room when not in use. We would sit at her kitchen table surrounded by her mustard-colored appliances and three of her five kids (the two oldest stayed with Dad) and go over our days. It was noisy and disjointed and bitchy and wonderful. But it wasn’t usual, and, in this instance, the friendship didn’t survive my move to another state and her new boyfriend.
The trouble with my youthful vision of friendship is that it insists on a few factors that very rarely enter into the equation for me anymore: geographical proximity, for instance, and phone time. Not a single one of my good friends from earlier times in my life lives anywhere near me–not even in the same state, or in the same region of the country–and, in at least one case, not even in the same country–and I don’t talk on the phone to any of them, except on the rare–like once a year–occasion. My friendships are conducted online and by post. And they all require the ability to pick up where we left off–in other words, on a certain amount of trust, on a certain amount of felt continuity, either because we’re poor correspondents, or–in the case of friends I’ve come to know online–because in most cases we’ve never actually met.
This year has been one, however, in which I’ve had the opportunity to re-connect with many of my closest friends…when I was home at my parents’ house this summer (for the first time in almost a decade), I spent time with my two good friends from graduate school, and with my oldest friend of all, whom I met in the seventh grade. And next month, R. and I are taking The Bee to Key West, to see my college roommate, whom I last saw in 1995. And last weekend, Sophie, my best friend from college, came to visit the ranch…all the way from India, where she lives (and was born).
I thought I’d share some photos of Sophie and myself through the ages, so to speak. I last saw her in 1998, when I visited India for two months but hadn’t really had exclusive time to talk with her since 1988, when I graduated from college, and we backpacked across Scotland and England together.
SBird and Sophie here, circa May 1988:
There was a tradition at our college, where you handed off your graduation robe to another, younger, student…Sophie was a year younger than I was, so here I am, just after picking up my diploma, handing the thing off to her…I have no idea where it is now, but it would be nice to think someone’s still using it and passing it along:
Here we are in July of 1988, eating a picnic of honey and bread on the island of Iona, off the coast of Scotland:
Here I am in India, in December 1998…Sophie took this picture, but we have very few of ourselves together from that visit…
and you can see how poor the one we do have turned out:
And here is Sophie up on the mountain last weekend:
What age has taught me about friendships is not to plan them too closely…not to depend on the idea that you know what they’re supposed to look like…and to assume that what unfolds will surprise you. Looking at these photos of Sophie and I, I realize that our friendship has occurred in glumps of time…moments where we touch base, catch up, and then move on again. And that certainly is one version of friendship, even if it doesn’t fit my earlier program. Moreover, some of my most regular friendships these days occur exclusively online…and the internets–blogs, email, newgroups–didn’t even exist when I was certain I knew what friendships looked like at the age of 20-something.
This year was marked by motherhood for me, of course, but it also has turned into a year of friends–several of whom stop by regularly for a chat, if only virtually.
I hate that every place I have lived, I have made a good friend and then left them as I moved to another place. I feel like I collect friends I cannot see daily. It is very hard, but probably the typical life of an academic. My two closest friends are in Chicago and Los Angeles. Maybe another time I will live closer to them.
Comment by: Nicole - 10.15.2007 - 1.50 pm
I’ve been thinking a lot about friendships lately, too. And I think you’re right in thinking that most enduring ones can sort waft and weave over time. There are certain people in my life (and some of my siblings are included in this) that I know I can just pick up wherever we last left off - even if it has been actual years since we’ve talked or seen each other. I have close friends here, IRL, some of whom I see at least a couple of times a week, and those are great in their own way. But there can be something kind of delicious about those friends from afar - the ones that we communicate with in a different way than the every day chatter. There can be a certain depth to a friendship when you have to choose your words because your words are somewhat limited.
Plus I am a haphazard housekeeper and part time hermit - so the idea of anyone just dropping in to my house at any given time gives me the willies.
Comment by: Maia - 10.15.2007 - 2.24 pm
Like Nicole, I have always seemed to make friends and then leave them behind. Especially sad for me is that I had a group of friends from college that stayed together for a long time - over ten years - until our move to the West Coast. Slowly the group unraveled and finally I stopped talking to and hearing from my oldest friend in that group about ten years ago…
One difficulty seems to be in finding people who enjoy doing things with us AND have similar/compatible personalities. It seems like the people we find that enjoy doing the things we do don’t get along with us that well, and the people we like to just spend time with don’t enjoy doing the things we do. Plus - and this is the thing you tell yourself won’t happen but always seems to - the kidlets are an axe that cut you off from your childless friends. We have several pals we just don’t see because it’s so hard to pay attention to them AND the offspring at the same time.
Comment by: FDChief - 10.15.2007 - 4.23 pm
I’m very grateful to be your friend, SBird. `Nuff said.
Comment by: walternatives - 10.15.2007 - 4.33 pm
I know exactly what you mean about the ebb and flow of friendships. I finally realized a few years ago that this is exactly what they can, and for me, should do.
My best friend, we’ve been friends for more than 25 years, through thick and thin like the toughest of marriages.
When Sophia died I could not handle talking to anyone, including her. we shut out everyone and anyone and for some reason it was too raw to talk to her about, perhaps the rawness is exactly the point.
When I was ready, she was there. She drove or flew up every other weekend for nearly 2 months. For every date, her due date, just crappy days… she sorted through the box from the hospital and in an instance I forgave her for ‘not being there for me’, though it was of course me who cause that, and she forgave me in an instant for not allowing her to be there.
In the end, she was the ONE person who did it all for us during those months. We ebbed and flowed together and I hope one day to do the same for her.
Thanks for the post.
Comment by: lisa - 10.15.2007 - 6.57 pm
Wonderful post - with much food for thought. Friendships always have held a certain amount of mystery for me.
My best girlfriend and I have known one another for 30 years now. We can not talk for a long time, then pick up where we left off. It’s always been like that for us. Even when we lived just miles apart - and now states apart.
I think people have expectations of what a friendship is, and when the other person doesn’t live up to that, you go separate ways. I think friendship WITHOUT expectations is probably a much more realistic approach.
Comment by: holly - 10.15.2007 - 8.12 pm
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, too. I do get frustrated because of what my expectation of friendship should be. I got married when I was an undergraduate (sigh) which cut off a lot of college friendships. I got divorced in grad school, and I lost the friends, and then I left behind a lot of fabulous friends when I moved here 2 1/2 years ago-yet many of them visit, they send spontaneous emails about missing me, etc.
When I moved here, though I tried to avoid it, my friendships centered around my job. Lots of great friends but, when the job didn’t work out, they started evaporating-not in a bad way necessarily, but their whole social life revolved around work I wasn’t involved in anymore. And I did feel a little abandoned.
But, what I have been noticing the last few months, is friendships that sort of crept up on me, like a woman in my knitting circle and all of the friends in the dancing community who complained last weekend about how they want me to come out and play more often.
And then I got an email out of the blue last week from a cyber friend of 4 years, whom I rarely talk to anymore just because she is busy with her baby, worried that I got my referral and forgot to tell her. I was so touched
So, I’m starting to think, you develop circumstantial friends around your interests, and some of them go deeper and some don’t, and there’s no guessing. Which is where the expectations part comes in I suppose… ~lmc
Comment by: lisa - 10.15.2007 - 10.28 pm
I could have written almost the exact same post. And from the looks of the comments so could a lot of us! I guess that is part of the trade off when we as a world no longer live our lives within a few miles from where we group up. I am truly grateful for the friends with whom I can pick up where we left off.
Comment by: Anne Marie - 10.17.2007 - 9.36 am
I agree with Anne Marie- I also could have written this post. Funny how bringing a child into your life makes you so reflective on the relationships that you’ve had in your past, but mostly how those same relationships are going to impact your future. Or not impact it. I can only hope that I, myself, am being a good friend to those that I care about so much.
Comment by: Mrs Pushy - 10.29.2007 - 10.37 am