soapboxdiner

On friendships and departures

This is not how I wanted to start the new year. This is not how I wanted to rekindle a friendship that for over a year added meaning and purpose and thought to my life. This is not how I wanted a friendship to end.

Hans Leisegang wrote, '... Aversion to love and its consequences, justification of a counter-nature which they (Gnostics) elevate to a level of nature, elimination of effort, a feeling that only one person in a thousand can understand them, megalomania, asocial behaviour, traits characteristic of decadence.'

Imagine a person like this. I wonder, is this a fulfilled person - a happy one? What happens inside the psyche and spirit of that person if and when they find that one in a thousand person and befriend them? Does it inherently bring a change in who they are, or does it simply just awaken in them an opportunity for a different outlook and attitude?

When that one in a thousand, with whom (even just platonic) love does not cause any aversion and with whom there isn't a need to eliminate effort because no effort is required, when that person comes, and then leaves, what then? It doesn't have to be a cataclysmic event, those moments can and every day do pass quietly and unceremoniously into and out of our lives. Many times without us even taking much notice.

Was that one-in-a-thousand person a friend to begin with? How deep was that original connection that caused asocial nature to dissipate? Was it real? Was it a thing to value while it was there, but to be unmoved by when it departed?

When I find a person with whom I feel and develop a friendship like that, it is for life. That person I will carry with me with fond memories forever. There have only been a handful of these precious people in my life. Nearly all of them are gone now, but they are still with me in my thoughts, in my memories, in the dreams I have at night.

He is and was such a friend. He was what he was. Searching. Thought-bound and prone. Intelligent but unsure. Hurt and broken and whole. Naive and instinctually wise. Idealistic, altruistic, bordering on irrevocably cynical. He was one of the best friends I ever had.

And then he left to start another life. It had no room or place for me. I didn't mind so much as I wished him good and well. It was time, or over-time, for his wings to spread. If a person can be both happy and sad, that is what I felt for him.

And then he was gone. And all I felt regarding his person was a sadness and a profound sense of the wake that he left.

A month went by, and then a year, and then he contacted me again. It has been a long while since we have talked, and I have thought of you. How have you been and please, tell me of all the occurrences your past year has seen.

And I was happy.

I wrote him back and gabbed like a teenager about this and that and a nothing much that felt more like an everything. I hit the send button and waited another month through his silence.

Yesterday he wrote again and these were the words he said:

Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 08:35:19 -0900
Subject: update
From: "Him"
To: "Person I don't know", "Other person I don't know", "Unknown Person 3", "UP 4", "UP 5", "UP 6", "UP 7", "UP 8", "SBD"

Message:

Updated web page, 1-3-03 at 8:35.

Glad to know you're writing again. It seems so a part of you.

When you last emailed me, it seemed like you wanted to rekindle a friendship that I thought meant something to you, as it definitely was one I enjoyed. You apologized for your absence and indicated that it was a thing you wanted to rectify.

When I replied, I did so in a personal manner. Sure, it wasn't all that expositive of emotion or deep, meaningful thoughts. It was, however, an effort to catch up, to start a new dialogue that might again lead to a communication between like spirits.

And then there was nothing again. I didn't hear from you until yesterday, when I opened an email that pointed me to some reading.

What exactly do you want from me? A following, or a friend? I have a reading list. What I wouldn't mind is my friend back, to laugh and talk and grow and explore thoughts. Let me know if that interests you. If not... well. Like I said, I have a reading list.

6:05 pm - 01.04.03
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