The Sixth Day

I’m starting to get worried that I’m not a great friend.

Which is weird. I’d be the first to say I’m extremely loyal compared to others I know. There are secrets and things I’d never divulge to another soul. Words told to me in confidence that I’ve locked away without a key and would practically have to be tortured in order to let them loose… and even after torture, I can honestly say if the words were told to me in confidence, I wouldn’t be that willing to part ways with them.

To me, that’s what I considered true friendship — the ability to preserve that which someone else wanted to keep hidden. If it was told to me, nobody else ever needed to know. If someone asked, I’d tell them to ask the source, not me. I took pride in people being willing to “come to me” for help and advice. And while I can’t always say I gave the BEST advice, I want to say I was one of the best listeners.

For all of the information I carried, and all of the things others placed in my hands to carry for them… I never let anyone else carry MY load. At least, not on purpose. My single greatest fear has always been that someone in possession of information about me, will use that information to hurt me. It could be the smallest thing, but the fact that someone else was comfortable enough to share that with someone else? I’d never forget it. I’d never let go of it. I’d never trust them again.

So why am I questioning my friendships? Because I’m getting older.

As you get older, milestones start happening in your life. You get a house. You might propose to someone. You might get a spouse. You might have kids. You graduate. My belief was that for major moments in life, you want to have the people who matter to you around for them. Many of my friends have proposed to the loves of their respective lives. Many of my friends have held housewarmings. Many of my friends have had weddings. Many of my friends have had kids.

Some weddings, I don’t get invited to. I haven’t been present for any moment when one of my male friends proposed to his fiancée/wife. Sometimes I’ll find out about a house far, far down the road. I’ve never been a best man, or in a wedding party. And up until two years ago, I’d never even been a godfather.

I haven’t always been the best at keeping in touch. While sometimes I’m fortunate enough to be able to pick up a conversation with someone like we never left, the conversations don’t happen often. Perhaps, just perhaps, part of the reasoning for my distance is I feel like all my friends are so much further ahead and I’m just not. They’re on their fifth mile and I’m just completing my first. After years of saying on Facebook and even on Twitter that I just wanted “a partner who can keep up with me,” it appears I’ve become the one who can’t keep up.

How is it that the last time I saw you, you still had a full head of hair… and the next time I saw you, years later, you were bald and there were grey hairs in your goatee? How is it that the last time I saw you, you had a whole engagement ring on your finger and the brightest smile on your face… and the next time I saw you, the ring was gone but the smile was still there AND your belly was poking out because you were eating for two now? How is it your 21st birthday was just yesterday and now today, it’s your second child’s third birthday? Where is the time going? Why won’t it slow down? Why am I missing so much?

I have to do better at being a friend.

I’m realizing that the more time passes, the more mortal we become as well. My friends get hurt and it’s not just like the finger you pop back into place when you sprain it during basketball — it’s hurt that involves hospital visits… or hurt that involves burying the ones that made them who they were. I have to do better at keeping in touch. I have to do better at not missing the moments that matter. I am starting to realize, as much as I rely on the isolation, I miss the presence of friends. Despite running the risk of exposing the points of attack I’m most vulnerable at, I miss being able to vent. It’s sometimes said that I “know” everybody”… but not very many people know ME. I worry that will leave me alone in the end.

That was a prospect that didn’t bother me once upon a time. But this is a different time. So I hope I can be more reliable as a friend this year, this month… tomorrow. Today.