Today I am attempting to write a letter to a friend. I just bought a card at the grocery for this purpose. The friend is not an old friend, but rather a new friend, or a possible new friend that I am adopting as a friend on a provisional basis.
When I say provisional, I don't mean that I am not sure I would like him to be a friend. I've already decided that I would like that, but it is not completely up to me. It is also up to him. In any case, friendships take time. They have to be seasoned. Two people have to learn the ways they can depend on each other, and to have a solid belief that the other person knows them and accepts them on a deep level so they can let their guard down with each other and be vulnerable.
I am accustomed to being deeply disappointed with friendships, my whole life. Almost inevitably they come to seem more important to me than the other person, and the moment I realize that is the moment I sense the friendship has a constraint that cannot be crossed. In fact, I assume by default I will always "max" someone out on a friendship. There are only a handful of people for whom I know our friendship is as important to them as to me. Being so enclosed as I am, I have, mostly unconsciously, put some of them through hell over the course of the years to prove this, and the ones who come through--who come back, even seeking me out after years---are the treasures of my life. Perhaps you, dear reader, are one of them.
I want to write about this more, but I would prefer to write about it in the context of this thread I have started, writing about my early life as a child, because my awareness of what I'm talking about here dates from that epoch. In fact one of the main reasons I am indulging in these recollections of the past is specifically to explore this, even though it means exposing myself and feeling sorrow over it. If I can, in writing these posts, transmute the pain in some kind of expression that connects with others then I feel redeemed in some small part.
Of course I don't expect full redemption from writing about painful things and even sweet things---for sweet things can be painful in hindsight, like Emily found out in Our Town. Full redemption only comes through God's gift of salvation, which I hope for after my death.
Still, we have much to do on Earth, in terms of taking care of each other. There are people regarding whom I have placed upon myself an obligation regarding their own lives on Earth, even though they might never have agreed to that. Love one another.
The person to whom I am writing today is someone I have mentioned here in my blog. He is someone I follow on X, and also on his Substack by subscription.
He is a young man, newly married and an expectant father. He lives in New York State. Despite his youth, he has written in powerful terms about exactly the kind of thing I have experienced by entire life, which is the brokenness of our society that has made true friendship a very difficult thing, and made so many of us feel isolated and alone. His frustrations echo mine so closely, but he writes about them in more eloquent terms.
Recently he posted on X that he was logging off on the eve of Shrove Tuesday and would not be posting again there during Lent. I think this is a great idea. Giving up forms of social media for Lent has been a growing trend in recent years, and may at this point be the most popular Lenten goal. He specifically stated that he would welcome receiving real mail at his new address any time but especially during this sojourn. I told him I would gladly do that---I practically live to send letters to friends.
During Lent is still writing articles on his substack, however, as that has become his primary source of income Of course I don't consider this little blog of mine to be social media. This is just a private communication between me and my friends. The last thing I want to do is share this widely with the world. Maybe I will tell him about it at some point, but for the moment it is mostly between you and me, dear reader, dear friend. I think of you as I write this.
No comments:
Post a Comment