The other day, after a weirdly difficult day, when I spent most of the time in my own head and feelings, I had an unexpected epiphany.
One of the running thoughts I had throughout that day concerned my friends, and how being a good friend needs to be continuous and that I need to put more effort in being an actual friend.
I popped into the bathroom to blow my nose, and right then and there in the dark room, through the trumpeting sound of my nose blowing, a little voice piped up from deep inside me. Basically, what this voice said was that I needed to allow others to be actual friends to me as well. And naturally this gave birth to another train of thought, and I proceeded to trace my friendships through the years to figure out who among the people I know had been a genuine friend to me.
Prior to this revelation I had told another friend who had been in two minds about one of his friendships, that not all friendships are the same. That some need more work than others. And I explained to him how I would be the light in someone’s life through their trials and tribulations for as long as they needed me to be. After blowing my nose I realised that, in my life, there had been very few instances when I felt someone was really going the extra mile in being my friend.
I blamed myself and the fact that I sometimes liked to control relationships, but then immediately shoved this thought out of my already spinning head. But it also led me to think of how our parents taught us to be good people and a friend that can be counted on. But rarely did they teach us how to let other people be good, reliable and unshakeable friends to us. I understand building relationships, and maintaining them, is difficult in general.
But this is one of the many things we owe ourselves, to allow someone in so they can be an actual friend to us. It’s all good and well when people invite you to a party and ask how you are doing every now and then, but we all know that is not really what friendship is. It’s about the one who bombards you with messages because they need you to be part of their day. It’s about telling you everything is going to be okay in the most difficult times you are living through. It’s about giving unsolicited advice and not just uttering “everyone is going through a difficult time.”
It’s about your individuality being celebrated by another who doesn’t insist that you conform to unrealistic norms. It is their acting on the mere thought of you, and not waiting for you to reach out first. I think in our lives we have been conditioned one way or another to believe what society and those in our circles think we deserve, and at some point we started believing this lunacy. It is almost as if we are raging against the machine by acting on our own raw needs, which is taboo. Sadly, we don’t want to acknowledge (probably too scared to) that friendships have expiry dates. Not because of drama, but because our needs change and we’re inclined to meet them.
