Entry 35/365

From the Latin *amicitatem (nominative *amicitas) "friendship" (source also of Spanish amistad), corresponding to Latin amicitia, from amicus (adj.) "friendly," which ultimately is from amare "to love".

I have heard and read many times that one does not create friendships after their 30s and much less in their 40s. Friendship is a mystery that took me years and a lot of heartbreak to unravel. Mostly due to my enormous expectations and neediness. I don't think I was pleasant company and the other thing is that I always loved being alone. 

Being alone is a skill I am still proud to have and it dates back to the time when introversion wasn't a thing. 

So a way I found of avoiding people was to make them not like me. Win-Win. It wasn't that simple of course, as I said my heart was broken many times because I was a girl with a lot of attachment issues and I tended to rely too much on A friend, when that friend became distracted or wanted to hang out with someone else for whatever reason I simply couldn't make sense of it. 

This went on for all my childhood years and teens. Until I learned the lesson and substitute people with writing, reading, and being alone. Then I met my husband who was a such delicious company I couldn't be bothered with the other people. Then I got pregnant in my 30s and the panic of my child becoming what I was overwhelmed me and took over me.

I signed up for every group and baby activity where I lived, and I went to NCT, not knowing what that was.  I made the point of making contact, getting to know, and securing my child's first friends. He was not going to be the little kid in the corner, reading a book. 

I never considered who he was, it didn't cross my mind that my little fella's personality and inclinations. I had a problem to solve and I was determined to solve it. 

To my luck and surprise, he didn't need much effort, he is naturally sociable and friendly. An easy-going little person who finds himself pleasure and entertainment without me helicoptering too much. Lucky me, because what tires me about friendship is not the sharing but the maintenance. The afterward, the keeping in touch, the texting... utter exhaustion and obliteration.  

The energy I put into this was enormous but it was not all loss. I learned the skill of being sociable again, I learned the English way of socializing these were invaluable lessons I owe to my son. Trying to be different from my Mum, and compensate for what I didn't have, prompted me to seek to decipher the enigma of friendship. 

Surely, I don't have many answers, but in the process, I evolved. For years, I held this idea that I would one day be "one of Als's best friends" or rather she would describe me this way. I really admired her, she taught me so much about so many things. One day I realized that "she was never that into me" and accepted this fact. I don't hold such expectations about her or no one else, in fact, I have no expectations at all. 

Sometimes is not about who you want in your life but who want to be in your life. Giselle C. 

Why it takes so long to understand that? 

When my son started school, I went again into that spiral of anxiety fueled by past experiences of loneliness, of being the awkward one in a room. Again, my he taught me that HE was going to school, not me. He had a solid base to count on, I was there, and his Dad was there for him too. 

He is now seven, and my daughter is almost three. Of all the Mums I met over the years, there was only one I really felt like being friends with, and I hold a sparkle of hope that we will be. 

We can only connect the dots looking backward...S Jobs.

 Isn't that how the famous quote goes? For me, I realized that God was connecting those dots too, all along my journey and this makes me feel very loved. 

It's only through a whole lot of heartache, pain, and putting ourselves in uncomfortable places that we will get somewhere. A place of understanding and acceptance.

The bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation. Oscar Wilde

That is my aim. A good conversation. Something within my skill set and attainable. The rest I live to the Universe to do its thing. 

Giselle C.