FRIENDSHIP AND SHARK ATTACKS

When I was growing up, we sang a song about friendship called, "Silver and Gold".  The lyrics go like this: 

"Make new friends and keep the old. One is silver and the other gold."

I have been fortunate to have kept many old friends, and they are truly as valuable as gold. It is a shame that so many of them live far away, however. 

Today I was talking to one of them, and it was really a challenge to have a conversation on the phone, so I find myself tonight writing this entry to try and express myself. It's something she's not comfortable to talk about in person she told me today, but she recently posted a blog post that made it impossible for me not to try to reach out, and she asked that I write rather than talk on the phone.

She worked with my ex-husband, and she and her husband were friends with us, because of him, not me. Our friendship really only began when I heard about her symptoms that added up to bad news, and I took her to the emergency room to be diagnosed. Just as I can't see her without my ex-husband's burden, I don't think she can see me without having her shark attacks reflecting back from my face.  But this is part of the trouble. 

I think I am the only one who have seen so many shark attacks without being afraid of sharks, as most people are, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to find a way to make this strength of mine translate into something positive in our relationship. I don't make her laugh like she did with my ex. Now that she has withdrawn so far away, I don't have connection to her husband or kids unless she feels brave enough or strong enough. I always feel at her beck and call, and my offers have mostly been rebuffed, but when her invitations come, I have always made it a priority to say yes, until they only came with travel plans.

Strangely, it was only my willingness to travel 10 hours away, and drive in a foreign country, and have enough liquidity to share accommodations that has kept us getting to know. I love the people she surrounds herself with, but when she started to feel overwhelmed with the idea of hosting, I gave up another group of locals, and thought we were done. I had hoped there would be an opportunity to transition when we decided to meet for supper one year a couple of years back, but what has happened is that I have just lost touch with her friends. 

In my imagination, I had hoped we could increasingly make a network around their family, as I know that they will increasingly need help. But if there is a need, I don't feel needed, or helpful. I hope others are doing the things I can't. I find myself like a tragic prophet, always knowing where the shark attacks will take her, but helpless to use the knowledge to do anything about it.

I am not gifted in making jokes, or playing video games. I am passionate about art, and food, and travel, and have a car, a disposable income, and four able limbs for the moment. I do not take these for granted, but I cannot seem to convince my friend of the urgency I have felt since that day in the hospital on Mount Royal to use these things to enable her to keep doing some of the things she loves too, and validate the guilt I feel for feeling well and being healthy, and the deep need to help. 

I don't know how to express that I need this as much as I offer it. I fear it comes across as charity, as it may be from someone else, but I have suffered so much loss in my professional career, that it is truly a relief if I could use the terrible knowledge I have gained for something other than grief. I know she is terrified of the current and future shark attacks, but I am not. I am only afraid that she bears them alone, when I am immune, and am not afraid. 

When I was at my lowest, away from my kid, and after losing so many friends following the breakdown of my marriage, she gave me reason to laugh, and gave me strength and friendship through email, and some precious invitations. Sometimes it still feels like I lost her and her husband too, even when they chose me, because it is so hard to get together. I realize that her introversion, and my general off-putting nature may be too much for either of us to overcome as she gives up many roles, and it might be necessary for her to give up her role as friend to me. How can I ask for what I need, when she feels helpless to take care of her own needs? And yet I have seen so many ways that it can work. I don't know if she has seen this before, but I want her to know that doesn't have to have all the strength herself. 

I hope that she can one day let me play the role of friend to her. I am shy and blunt and way less funny, but it would seem such a waste that our friendship couldn't evolve. I just hope she can let me in a little. I need a little more gold in my life. And I want to believe that my friendship has value too.