The Friends We Leave Behind

(Actually From Last Friday)

Again I feel like I am in an insurance commercial. You know, “Life Comes at You Fast!” Sometimes life moves so fast I feel like I have to keep running as fast as I can just to stay in one place and the world is spinning by me like Alice holding fast to the Red Queen’s Hand.

As of now I am completely Melanoma free. All five of my biopsies came back negative and of that five only two needed additional excision because of abnormal, though not malignant, cell growth.

Today was the last day of school for my students (Thank God!) and so begins my summer season and my other identity at camp.

Roo ate a huge bag of chocolates she got off the coffee table, but thankfully (!!!) threw it back up all over the kitchen. This is when I am thankful for Lindsey, as I wasn’t there and I didn’t have to clean it up.

While the sting of my PhD rejection is not yet forgotten, I have begun to find solace in other pursuits for this next year and reaffirmed my commitment to advanced education.

Nana is becoming increasingly confused and I am facing the very real possibility that our time together is on the downward slope. Yet for all that the dear old lady is so plucky. Last week she became convinced there was a third dog in her room. It was a bit spooky for me even as I was afraid to check for fear that she had somehow adopted a skunk. It happens! Anyway, no harm no foul and she was more upset about the confusion than I was.

My non-existent love life has continued to be a source of confusion (and friends’ amusement) for the past several months. One of these days I’m going to figure this stuff out, but I doubt anytime soon. Further I have been accused of torturing impressionable young men (very legal, just younger than me, mind you) for my own personal entertainment. All I have to say is that people have some weird ideas about what is funny.

My stepmother, bless her, is having back surgery today. Hopefully her week long confinement to a walker (quite a blow to a very active and energetic lady under 60!) will be over come Monday. My prayers have been with her all day.

As have prayers for another friend, flying with a head cold. Poor woman.

And yet in the midst of all of this, I am troubled by something completely unrelated. Well, it is slightly related to one thing listed above, but I doubt few if any can guess it or why and how.

Friendship is something I am spending a lot of time evaluating lately. It is a very simple thing and yet so very confusing as well. Most of my friendships make little sense to me much less others. I am not a fan of “best friends;” I think that is too hard a commitment, almost like marriage. Good friends are people you see often, but if things get busy they don’t criticize you for neglecting them. Good friends are the friends you may go months between talking to or visiting or e-mailing and yet you are still close. Even then inside of good friends there are so many nuances and categories. Some friends are more like family than friends, they may not like you much, but they love you and you matter to each other. Some friends continue to make you as uncomfortable as you can be surrounded by friends, but it’s OK and everyday and normal. In some ways I imagine I am rather high maintenance and somewhat dizzy-ing as a friend. I get worked up, spun up and then enact an entire Russian novel usually in the space of two weeks before I am off on some new literary bender.

One friend, this week, I asked a really odd and stupid question of, and then when I didn’t hear from her became convinced I had mortally offended and left an even more bizarre message on her machine. This is a true friend let me just say. One who gives much more than she takes. Again one who makes me wonder, “Why are we friends?” As in, “What the heck is she doing putting up with me?” Because lately I find I really want to know why some people are my friends. Not as in I am ungrateful, I am so very thankful, but I don’t understand how I help or improve their life and why I would matter. Then there are people who I think of as a friend, but I am not sure how they think of me and am even more confused. Then you throw in these men who may or may not have feelings beyond friendship and I am even more confused.

What is worse is that there is no good way to ask these questions, discuss this concern of mine without stirring up a lot of dust. Some of it is old dust, best left resting, some of it is newer dust, but needs to settle down so we can see and breathe. So many things affect other things; it is never just a simple question with a simple answer.

Lately I am trying to understand why a particular group of people care about me and whether or not I might not actually be irritating to some of the members of said group and if I am irritating, why am I and if I am is it therefore wrong for me to be a part of the group and if I am wrong about my concern why does it need to be like I am irritating all the time if I am not? Yes, I imagine that made no sense to anyone other than me. Further I suspect the answer will not make me feel any better no matter what.

So today, as I prepare to sit through our high school’s graduation. As I think over the delightful Eagle Scout Ceremony I went to last night for a dear young friend that I am very proud of. I as I try very hard not to chafe the inside of my arm so I don’t have too much of a scar from excisions (the scar looks like someone put out a cigar on my arm right now and I don’t want it to get worse.) As I am lately trying to discover who the real me is inside and whether or not I can think of that person as outwardly pretty (I am trying!) As I am preparing to end school, start camp, take care of Nana and all the other things I do, I am lost in a rather pointless reflection on friendship that has actually managed to already weird a friend out a bit... yet even she still loves me for all I don't understand why... And I am grateful.

Happy Friday!