inspired by previous post
One truth in the middle of everything else shaded; a world full of shades of grey amidst all that black and white. Friendship will never be overrated.
Friends. We make them. We literally do that. We choose who we want to be friends with. We even decide how close and intimate we want this friendship to be. Friends are our own choice. There’s something about freedom of choice here that just speaks volumes. Not in a cliché kind of way, but in a sense that is amazingly good, heartwarming and comforting. We choose our friends.
Remember your school days? The years of growing pains. We were just a little bunch of happy-go-merry kids, without a care in the world. We had our braids, hideous glasses, embarrassing braces, cute dimples, ridiculous crushes and a collection of bizarre toys and games, among other childish things. In our minds, we had everything we needed. I am not exaggerating - everything. Not because of our young innocent minds believing that’s all we need, but because we had our very own BFF. Best Friend Forever. That one person we spend every waking moment of the day in school with. We’d sit together in class, eat lunch together from almost identical lunchboxes, play every sport together, join the same extracurricular clubs, share stories and gossip, talk, smile, laugh, cry, jump and scream together. We’d hang out at each other’s places every chance we got. We know the inside of our BFF’s house just as we did our own. Most of our memories in school revolve around our BFF. We were inseparable. We did everything together. We made promises we believed we could keep, in spite of anything, in the face of everything. We promised to always be best friends forever.
And some of us did. Some of us remain friends. I do know of people, who have friends they’ve known since kindergarten, or school, friends they grew up together with as neighbours, or as close family friends. I myself am still friends with a few from school. That friendship is priceless to say the least - friends from the good old days. The ones who know you better in some ways than you know yourself. Friends who would tell you what you won’t tell yourself. Friends who give you the proverbial shoulder to cry on, and are the ones you want to share and celebrate every insignificant piece of news you have with first. You can count on them to be there for you at all times, be it happy, delightful, miserable or sad. They are exceptionally precious friends. You can go days and weeks not speaking, but one casual phone call or SMS or Facebook poke, it more than makes your day. It has meanings only the two of you understand. An old song on the radio or on TV can flood you with warm memories that you’ve forgotten, and you immediately appreciate the small reminder with a smile on your face. On instinct you text message your friend about it, or bring it up the next time you talk. You cherish those friends unconscious of how they are your connection to life – ‘a tie to your past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world’.
Except that we didn’t all keep our promise. Some BFFs ended when school was over or during the first years in college. Occasionally when you remember a certain BFF, it still takes you by surprise that you’ve lost touch and haven’t spoken or seen each other in years. No one is to blame. Why that happens has been under enormous speculation worldwide. Will it suffice to say it’s a side effect in our grand journey through life?
Life takes you places. You grow. You move. You live and learn, and almost always you inevitably end up leaving something behind. We don’t intentionally leave our friends. Not unless it’s reached a point beyond reconciliation. That happens in rare occasions. Not just a conflict of interest, it’s a combination of miscommunication, failure to understand, saying the wrong things, or worse not saying anything, growing apart, getting caught up in one thing or another. It’s simple in spite of all those complexities. We change. Somewhere along the line, we get consumed and drawn deeper in this massive spider web we call life. All the paths we take; the crossroads we face, the obstacles and the stepping stones. All the distractions, reactions and interactions; life has plenty.
Going through college and later into the real world, we start to work, build our careers and make something of ourselves. We go through new experiences, from our exposure in the professional world, the personal lives we lead, and the interests we pursue. We like to think we mature; we grow wiser, and know so much about so much. But the minute we stop learning is the minute we grow old. I heard somewhere that we have to make mistakes to actually figure out what is right. Some of those mistakes tend to be painful though, which is unpleasant and downright nasty. Except that there is a good side in there, in terms of friendship I mean. These mistakes eventually let you know and discover things about yourself, who you are, who’s a real friend, and who’s a fake.
Fake ones you can totally forget about and eliminate from your life, or limit your relation with depending on whether you can actually avoid encounters with them. It’s not always ok to lose touch; some friends are worth second chances. They deserve that you overcome your stubbornness, and find common grounds to speak again. What you’ve shared matters. Other times you realize you’ve alienated a few for no good reason. It’s not always possible to mend those. You’re responsible and guilty under every possible nonexistent law of friendship. Another thing you learn is that in a phenomenal way, we make new friends all the time. We have new friends to be ourselves with, to share the ups and downs in our current lives with, and make new memories together. We trust them, and we confide in them. In doing so, we’re well aware that a few of our new friends can in actual fact blackmail us for everything we’re worth!
There’s a feeling writers occasionally experience, how difficult an article or a story or a blog becomes when they have nothing to say, yet everything to say. No matter how much you want to say and do eventually articulate into words of depth and insight, there’s a nagging feeling that you still haven’t actually said anything at all. You haven’t expressed your thoughts and the point you’re trying to make. Reading this quote made me realize why I’m feeling this way for this article in particular; ‘Friendship is not a big thing. It’s a million little things’.
A million little things.
A friend understands - even better - shares and delights in your passions, especially when that passion is something as simple but nevertheless deliciously exquisite as coffee. That’s not a big thing. It’s special maybe, but in reality, it’s a million little things.
Trick is to keep breathing
Life hands us ironies by the dozen.
Let me humor you with this one; why is breathing not in our own hands to function or control? It is essential to our being, a crucial activity to us remaining alive but usually we're not aware of our breathing.
Breathing is a continuous spontaneous act.
We are all breathing right this second. It is not an option. The trick is in the attitude. Especially at those times that confuse us the most; times that disturb our thoughts and affect our moods. There is the occasional overload from work and pressure from everywhere else. There is always a reason or two to feel stressed.
There’s a tremendous weight on our shoulders. We sense heaviness – in our movement and inside us. Our thoughts are jaded and nothing is turning out as we’d hoped. Frustrations add to our disappointments. Constant flow of problems leaves us agitated. We can read failure between every line. We notice the shadows and miss the streak of light. We grow cynical and weary. We have energy levels approaching zero, and we are exhausted, both mentally and physically. We become drained by the entirety of it all. We don’t see any signs of clouds with silver linings.
We’re barely able to let out a sigh.
So we breathe. We take a breath. That’s all we have to do at that moment. Breathe in and breathe out. We cannot succumb to quitting. No matter how appealing the idea of giving up seems. The urge to let go is hard to resist. Sometimes we strongly feel we can’t take it anymore. The outcome is bleak either way.
That’s precisely why we need to keep breathing, and if only to make it through. We fell down the first time we tried to walk. We almost drowned the first time we tried to swim. We missed the ball the very first time we swung a bat. We try, and try again. We find the will to hang on. Every once in a while we trip, stumble and fall. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Why do we let it hold us back? We can be proud we fell, as long as we get up again. We get up every time we fall. We can make our own way. No one said it was easy. In fact it gets harder every day. And we don’t have to fight. Fighting implies a lot of strength, but we may not have the energy in us right then.
We just breathe.
We clear our heads, and get perspective. You see, the trick is to keep breathing.
The Irony of My Memories!
I have a terrible memory. I forget. Almost religiously.I used to be pretty good with names, but lately that too has gone sour. It's like I have an unbelievably low capacity when it comes to memory retention.
In the middle of a story, a story I'm telling, occasionally I stop mid-sentence. I get this odd puzzled expression on my face. I'm surprised at myself. I have absolutely no idea what I wanted to say next, or how the story goes. I'd be talking on the phone and minutes after we hang up, I try to recall what we agreed on, and sometimes I go blank. For the life of me, I don't remember if we decided to meet at 7 or 7.30, if I was supposed to pass by or meet them there, if I had to pick something up on the way or if the restaurant was the next right, or left for that matter.
It's sad I know.
It also happens with my reading. I'd be reading a novel, and then it comes up in conversation and I don't remember much of the details. Details I'd just been reading. Even in my exams, I face the exact hopeless dilemma. Like which management theory first stated motivating employees, or what was the correct term used to depict a certain state of things. It wasn't lack of studying. I concentrated hard enough. Maths was an exception though. I think I just memorized equations by heart and it worked. A tiny miracle I must say.
So why is it that I can not forget things I really really no longer wish to remember? Some memories of times long gone, a different day and age and a different life altogether. I do remember those. Not vividly, but it's all there. Plenty of bits and pieces that jump right at you. It's not nostalgia. I'm not sure if these memories are simply haunting me, or they just linger. My point is I easily forget. Exceptionally easy. So why is it so damn hard to forget when you put your mind to it?
In the middle of a story, a story I'm telling, occasionally I stop mid-sentence. I get this odd puzzled expression on my face. I'm surprised at myself. I have absolutely no idea what I wanted to say next, or how the story goes. I'd be talking on the phone and minutes after we hang up, I try to recall what we agreed on, and sometimes I go blank. For the life of me, I don't remember if we decided to meet at 7 or 7.30, if I was supposed to pass by or meet them there, if I had to pick something up on the way or if the restaurant was the next right, or left for that matter.
It's sad I know.
It also happens with my reading. I'd be reading a novel, and then it comes up in conversation and I don't remember much of the details. Details I'd just been reading. Even in my exams, I face the exact hopeless dilemma. Like which management theory first stated motivating employees, or what was the correct term used to depict a certain state of things. It wasn't lack of studying. I concentrated hard enough. Maths was an exception though. I think I just memorized equations by heart and it worked. A tiny miracle I must say.
So why is it that I can not forget things I really really no longer wish to remember? Some memories of times long gone, a different day and age and a different life altogether. I do remember those. Not vividly, but it's all there. Plenty of bits and pieces that jump right at you. It's not nostalgia. I'm not sure if these memories are simply haunting me, or they just linger. My point is I easily forget. Exceptionally easy. So why is it so damn hard to forget when you put your mind to it?
