Hello Interwebs once again.
Are we ready for another somber blog post? No? You may want to click away, 'cause I've been thinking about this for a while. It's impregnated my brain, has gestated and is finally ready to pop out all pink and perfect with all the right things in all the right place.
I've been thinking about friendships. Or rather... the changing nature of friendships. Some change and evolve into wonderful things that bring your friendships to new heights, new places. Others fade peacefully, and still others come in fast and furious into your life only to leave just as abruptly. I'm familiar with all these. And I, like many others, am at peace with them. When a friendship changes in one of these ways, I accept it, perhaps with some sadness, depending on the circumstances, and move on.
But there are others that have a bigger impact. The Lifers. For the majority, I'm not one of those people that has a million best friends, crushed when each leaves. Instead, I have many acquaintances, and establish a few significant relationships that haveand I expect will last for years, if not life. I have a small selection of very close friend, a handful at best. It is the changes in these kinds of relationships that can be pretty big. Changes that happen for the better are fabulous. It's so incredibley cool when you suddenly have all these new things that you can talk about, or you know you can talk about all the things that you think are cool, and your friend just lets you and accepts it.
But there are bound to be those friendhips that you lose. You grow apart, you no longer have similar interests. Sometimes you can see it happen, giving you some time to prepare for it. Other times, it happens and makes your head spin.
Maybe it's after a separation or some big life changes, but that friend you knew and loved is no longer the same person. They've changed and grown to follow a completely different path. You've changed and probably barely realize it. Someimes it's a disliked action where you suddenly realize the changes between you and your friend, or worse that they've been doing this all along, and it's only now you realize it. You struggle to speak with them, to understand them, to re-establish a new connection with this new incarnation of your friend. When that doesn't work, you try to reconnect on that age-old friendship you had. But talking to them is harder than that first class in calculus after a year of doing nothing but English courses. It hits you like a ton of bricks. Regardless of the reason, your close, bonded friendship gone.
It pulls at your heart. You feel like crushed and depressed. You yearn for those younger years when you knew you could count on your friendship to last forever. Movies, coffee dates, walks, talks, games. You miss it all. It seems that it should be simple to get back, but you might as well try to climb up a sheer rock wall. How do you come to terms with a friendship that's ended? When you've been bumped to acquaintence and don't know how to get back? Do you let it go? Fight to get it back?
Friends Forever?
Tidbits of Insight
Hello again Interwebs.
I recently read something of interest. A writer was explaining the utter difficulty of writing. I was surprised and intrigued by this. I had always had the impression that professional authors simply sat down and wrote out their genius with relative ease. Ok, maybe they had a block or two, but the rigid all consuming block of “I saw this all so clearly earlier today, and now I just want to do anything but this”? Never. I thought this seeming inability to write was one of those things that simply defined me as a non-writer, and I resigned, deciding it was better to stick to reading books instead of writing books.
But then I found this article. Here it was, about an accomplished writer who struggled with sitting down and putting words to paper. Or to computer. Whatever. The point being that I could relate to the writer. I could understand. She spoke of setting a time and timeframe to get her work done – 2 hours a day, where work entailed sitting in front of the computer with no internet, no phone calls, and no distractions. It didn’t matter if she wrote a book in that time, a sentence, two words or nothing at all, just so long as she was there. Once the time was up, you stopped. No matter where you were in the process. This made complete sense. It was a small revelation.
I have a whole filing structure full of writings and crafts and art to do or in various stages of being done. I love doing those things. But my most productive time, when I have complete works of paintings and drawings, are when I’m attending those 6 or 8 week free-lance art classes. Yes, I go to learn and to improve. It was the only thought I had when signing up. Go. Be exposed to other artists, learn from them, and get better at doing something you love.
What I later realized was that I valued those 2 solid, dedicated hours of doing nothing, talking about nothing, and seeing nothing but art. And it was up to me what I did with that. I didn’t have to finish a masterpiece; I had bought myself a time block solely for the purpose of arting. This was pretty much what this author in the article was talking about. The only thing I didn’t get right away was why stop? Why stop the creative juices from flowing? The more I thought about my classes, the more I started to see. It was the same. I had to stop because I had run out of time. And until I was back at it again, I had the thought of how I might tinker with it again in the back of my mind. If anything, creative juices were steeping, like an unending pot of tea.
It was like a more substantial “Stars! They’re just like us!” moment. A professional writer, dealing with the same issues I did. She may not be Stephen King, Tolkein, Hardy, Rowling or any of the Biggies I pretend I might be one day in my most content fantasies, but she is PUBLISHED and WORKING as a writer, which has always been a dream.
I’m hoping to be able to work something like this out. She had also explained that she had done up a mock contract with a friend about committing to this 2 hours a day plan… I’m just not certain any of my friends would be able to commit to that!
None the less, though it seems like an immense task (even now, my mind is telling me “You can’t put away a block of time like that! What about house chores? What about other plans? What about making meals? What about when you’re just too tired?”) But it all boils down to simply being able to make yourself stick to it, and managing your time outside of work. Before you know it, it’ll be habit. I think I’ll start tomorrow.
If I’m not mistaken, this article was out of an O Magazine I found at my mothers camper this weekend. If I can find it again, I’ll link it.
Surprising, the tidbits of insight you can find when you least expect it.