I'm Sorry

So I have mentioned my dear friend Astoria. As is customary for me, I disclose nearly everything to her, and she claims to have told me more than anyone as well. In a recent chit chat we were having I told her that she is not very accessible. I have tried to call her at home and she never picks up the phone. I have no cell phone for her, no email address and no invitation for anything ever outside of work. I envisioned her as being very busy with family and maybe in an unhappy place and I don't want to impose upon anyone what they may not be in the mood for. I also have a history of being poor at this friendship stuff and not giving enough of me into a friendship. So maybe this distance is easy for me. But I did tell her that she is not very available and she told me that she was scared to get too close to me because she fears I will be leaving this job or moving. She said she loves me dearly but doesn't want to become too attached to me. I feel a bit offended that she is refraining from befriending me completely because of the possibility that I may go somewhere. Does that mean she'll drop me if I move and never call? To that she said she doesn't do long distance relationships well. What about 'it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all'. She doesn't believe that? Either way she acknowledged her behavior. My problem is that when I tell people stuff it means I gave a piece of myself to someone. So Astoria is taking all my pieces and has no intention of keeping a connection with its bearer. She will never mistreat my pieces but I want to be a good friend to her as well and I don't know that I am. Maybe for her it is just easier not to invest so much into a friendship or relationship. We are scared, fractured people and I would tend to think that with all I know about her, there is more to it than that.
I watched Love Story last nite with Tom - the movie with the famous line "Love means never having to say your sorry". When I first heard this line I thought it was quite phenomenal, but I was young. And I was too young to know what love was all about. I remember an English class in Jr High School or High School where the teacher was asking about what love is. (Why she wold be asking that to a bunch of young kids, I don't know) But I thought I was quite astute and raised my hand to say that "love means never having to say your sorry". The teacher laughed at me while quickly dismissing the possibility that anyone would be led to believe that I came up with that myself announcing that it is from a movie. She said that was not realistic to say that people who love one another don't ever have to say they are sorry. OK. So I get that. And when I watched Love Story last nite, my impression was that it seemed kind of corny. When I think about my relationships, I would not necessarily dismiss an "I'm sorry" by an assumption or deep assured knowledge that they are, of course sorry. I think I would like to hear a 'sorry', and I think we should all be saying more 'sorrys' than we do!
But when I think about Astoria, and how she puts a wall up in terms of our friendship, I do know she is sorry, and she never, ever has to say it. When I think of this situation, I understand completely how love means never having to say she's sorry. With others, its nice to know they feel some remorse for being stupid and this can be felt when someone says sorry. But Astoria doesn't need to feel remorse for something I understand, despite it being stupid.
So I don't know what this difference means, I know all relationships are different - friend, spouse, family, children... and they all require different management methods depending upon what they are based on for you. Maybe it's our own issues or expectations we are putting into these relationships and if we had no baggage or expectations, we would never need to hear 'I'm sorry'.

My dear friend

As I mentioned earlier, my dear friend Astoria's mama wasn't doing well. Now I can say that she is finally at peace and has been put to rest. The end of her mother's life was tortured and painful and now that is over, but Astoria is a mess. I think she kept far too much bottled up and now it's all plowing out. So once again, pray for a wonderful person who is going through a very hard time.

My dear friend

At work, I have a very, very dear friend. She is perfectly flawed and impeccably challenged. Her son had a brain tumor about 5 years ago and sometime after her sharing that with me, I shared with her that my husband had cancer. I am quite tight-lipped about my personal life but I was easily able to share the details with her. So my dear friend Astoria knows more about me and what I feel than many others do. I think part of that is because I see her nearly everyday so each bump in my path, or sun on my shoulders she hears about because she is available and utterly trustworthy and infinitely empathetic.
When she wants to say something that she thinks she shouldn't, I can see on her face exactly what she wants to say. But instead of saying it outright, she asks me a question. Like if I am bitching about someone, instead of saying "boy Someone sure is an asshole" she ask me, "How do you feel when Someone does that? Does it make you angry" I suppose this is a wise strategy but I don't think she thinks of it that way- I think she probably doesn't want to say something that I may get mad at her for or she fears may offend me. Or maybe its because she really understands about how feelings fluctuate and scenarios change and Someones can be good and Someones can be bad all in the same Someone.
Astoria is a complicated person and she has had alot of unfortunate things happen to her.
Her mother is a resident on the dementia unit in the nursing home we work in. She was diagnosed with early onset dementia, at the age of 50 i think. It has declined rapidly and her mama cannot communicate nor recognize anyone. It is a terrible, terrible disease and knowing it from my work experience and more personally is why that book Still Alice touched me so much.
After you see how this terrible disease progresses and the burden it puts on family members who love the victim oftentimes you realize that living with end stage dementia is no way to live. She knows that better than anyone.
Her mama has been doing worse than usual this week and it is an erie feeling to think the end is near. Though she has said many times that death would finally bring comfort to her mom, it still has to be scary. To anyone who is reading this, please pray for what is best for my dear friend, and her family.

Texting

I have realized how important my friends are to me, and further, the more you put into your friendships the more you get out of them. There are so many types of friends and sometimes I get annoyed that a friend is lacking a certain quality. But if you are missing one thing, you probably have a good quality someone else does not. This is the same idea as with men - one man isn't going to have all good qualities, and you must decide if your man has the best of the bad qualities or possesses the important good qualities.
As for my friends, I have one great friend who I know is there for me, makes a point to travel to me and visit, and knows a ton about me, but I wish we spoke more in between our visits. She once said she didn't like to talk on the phone which is probably the main barrier, but I notice she has trigger happy fingers with the text messaging. So, I have evolved, but I used to be annoyed by text messaging because I wonder why a person cant pick up the phone and talk. I may send a text message if I want to say something but not get into a conversation. Is that what others think of me? They don't want to talk to me, they just want me to hear one thing, or know they remembered one thing but cant bear to be subject to my other unrelated words? (I'm being sarcastic, but truthful) But I guess now that I have a toddler and a little baby who have collectively turned up the volume in my house, I appreciate the text message because I can communicate with out me and my listener being thoroughly distracted by my kids. I can now begin my sentence, change a diaper, wash my hands, hand out a cracker, continue my sentence, stop to pour a cup of milk, finish my sentence, stop to nurse the baby and burp him while pushing 'send'. Nice, huh? So what technology once annoyed me and made me believe the basis of conversation and connection was being further degraded is actually helping me and I'm embracing it.

Friends

I never was that good at making treasured friends, although I always had plenty of friends. The friends I had were often friends of convenience or circumstance, those whom I may have spent a lot of time with but never made a substantial friendship out of. I think this is because I am always hesitant to open up about myself and if you don't give anything to a friendship it will die. I jokingly said to my husband that you have to talk about yourself to make friends. Unfortunately, I don't really like to do that. I write with much more ease than I speak and I can put feelings down on paper readily but cringe when I have to say them aloud. Either way, I have pulled through these 27 years of my life with a handful of wonderful friends, only two of which are old friends. Because I have more new friends (made in the last 5 years) this tells me that I have probably matured a bit and found more of myself. I know myself better and I like who I am better and therefore I am comfortable and confident to display that person. I treasure these friends almost to the point that I am overwhelmed with how nice it is to have friends. I am a person who is very comfortable being alone, but I have become more comfortable with more people which makes life a happy place. Yet, because it doesn't come naturally to me to talk about myself and my life, I have to remind myself to do so...maybe this blog is perfect for me!- I love writing!