Myself and I
There has got to be accepted judgment on this one when I say that I am that oddball who is not good at investing in friendships and so, don’t have many. Sure. I have “friends”, those of whom I check on once in awhile just so they know they were in my thoughts who then, ultimately reciprocate the same gesture. I will make a point to go out to lunch with a friend to personally catch up on life. How many times? How many friends? I count three this year, one lunch per. And this was me intentionally making the effort post-COVID 2020. This includes having one over for lunch. Those are the rare gems that accept you as you are and know how to pick up where you left off from the last time. To have multitudes of friendships, however? I must ask, “Why?” More importantly, perhaps, you must answer yourself that very question. As for me, here I stand open before you in the following paragraphs.
Having moved around so much and running into a fair share of moments where my trust in potential friendships were inevitably broken, I can honestly say I have learned, by necessity and choice, to be my greatest friend.
After many years and arriving at peace with its confinements, here is my take on making friends:
Friendship takes time. It’s not that there aren’t good people to be found out there to invest a form of genuine friendship with for a lifetime. I had been blessed to find myself surrounded by peers who were serious about their future, morality, love and education. Yet, I lose time trying to get to know me when investing time to get to know those around me. Selfish me, I know. Even after so many years, however, I am still working on the need to be friends with myself first before ever really considering anyone else other than God and my husband.
It’s effort. I am a 100% or none kind. I want someone to know they are completely and fully valued in my life. This would suggest an open door, any time of day or night commitment, if that was to be so. Anyone of goodness deserves such honor. If I cannot give that, my heart and soul desire not to partake. One should never invest time or effort with a fake. That suggests codependency for company, not genuine friendship.
It is not me to truly dedicate my time and effort on something if I know it will be short-lived. This probably has had something to do with me having had to go to six different primary schools, two in junior high, with just one finally for my high school year which I am grateful to have had the opportunity as it was truly my greatest gifted opportunity for stability prior to adulthood. By high school, however, I had adapted to being alone with my own thoughts, regardless of the crowd of peers or people around me. I heard my own thoughts always talking to me the loudest, selectively deafening me when others tried to interfere.
Going from one school after another taught me to not care for the world and its afflictions. I couldn’t worry about who was going to try and hurt me next with curt words or demeaning actions; I had to stand my ground momentarily just so I could keep myself up, ready for the next group of eyes looking upon me as the “new girl”. From the time I could understand language and gestures, I wanted to devour minds and their thoughts, not be occupied with the trivialities of reciprocated friendship. I learned to not need people, just their wisdom. This is why it is so great to talk to people while in line at a grocery store or amusement park. You essentially give them your best impression on whatever topic was brought up and go your separate ways. That devotion, that commitment you just gave a stranger? Priceless. And yet, you didn’t even have to clear your schedule to take them out to lunch or tidy your house to have them over. Going from one school after another, I have gained the understanding to cherish moments you get when it is before you. Carpe diem.
From a very young age, I found best joy and peace amongst the older generation having deep conversations. If I sat quietly enough, I could be ignored by the adults, allowing me to sit on the floor or corner, submerging myself with “grown-up” talk. By the time I was in 6th grade I found myself most comfortable and happy in the library with about two other students with Ms. Conertz, the librarian, who graciously opened her doors during recess for us “non-conformists” to the world of other normal playing children. It was always disappointing to find that she could not open the library and so, to my quiet dismay, I would find myself facing the wraths of tag where I was always “it” or monkey bars where I found myself climbing over them with no hands as fast as I could rather than swinging on them. Swinging on them gave your hands calluses. However, walking over them, back and forth- that hardly ever took up a portion of recess before you were told to get down or just had enough of it already. Yawn.
School shopping being non-existent in my life until I arrived at the age of fourteen to have my own job to by my own clothes, having no clothes unless I took them apart and resewed them to become “new to me” led me to my inadvertent uniqueness- at… most times, tacky, but nonetheless, different from the rest. I never could understand why my cousin would tape outfits on her walls to motivate herself to follow trends. My vision to be always different came along with the need to be, eliminating any desire of wanting to be.
One thing I did love to do amongst groups or crowds of people, vainly, was dance. The one junior high up north I attended would hold school dances and I would time myself to be there just enough to catch the city bus to get home before knowing my Papa would suspect me being anywhere else but the library. At the dances, I would take the floor without the need to dance with anyone else. If you were my partner, you were merely used as a standby just so I could somehow work the part of being in “the norm”. My husband knows that I can easily find a stage or spot during our clubbing days where I would forget I was around others and just dance my heart out. Those younger days dancing alone in my room had to eventually free itself. The play of a good beat- the cue for my spirit to awaken like a dragon freed from chains.
As for talking to others, I had always carried a journal with me when I couldn’t or no one cared to listen, always writing whatever came to my mind. Again, I had to ignore the looks and utter silence around me each time I entered a new school. My journal was all the friend I needed. Funny how someone mentioned that about me at my 10th-year reunion the same way I recall someone recalling Kenny G doing the same with his saxophone when he walked around the same high school I graduated from (not the same year, but we did get to see him play in the band room via television cast when he visited).
I did the activities and all that stuff you were to partake in because they were my own goals, not because someone said I had to. I just self-centeredly believed I fit whatever a group was looking for.
You can only imagine how many close friends I truly had-none. Fortunately, I was surrounded by some greats which helped to make me want to be greater, but that was just it. There was truly no time to care about other people’s lives. I had to focus on mine because I knew in my home, busy with life of their own, no one else had my future in mind. With this mindset and ingrained belief, I failed miserably at trying to play in any part of unity and friendships.
I have discovered that people want you to listen to their stories, but hardly do they want a solution. This takes reciprocal efforts of listening while the other talks. I am all about that- IF you have something I care to listen to. My oldest child once suggested he may have an attention deficit disorder. He was in college at this time. My response? I told him that if this were the case, he would not have been a straight-A student all his life, graduating as an academic state champion. What he was beginning to understand was selective listening. That’s not a deficit-that’s knowing how to invest space in your brain and memory. As I tell my students, you can’t fit all boxes in a UPS truck; you have to choose what to load in, unload, to reload new things again. Some boxes are familiar, some are not.
Whenever you try to be like THIS with others, you aren’t exactly the one people think of first when they need comfort or compassion. Whether defensively or innately, I’m okay with this.
If you have arrived at being your greatest friend first, I personally believe you are indeed with great fortune. How else can you truly know how to be a good friend to others if you do not know what would be required to suggest such genuineness? Embrace having arrived at this destiny. Not many, I see, know such inner peace. I am convinced I am still one of them. I’m still dating me. Even after being married to my husband almost three decades, he still has to be introduced to all of me. Lucky him, I would think.
Peace be with me, myself, and I.
