6/22/2006

Half Naked

I know today is half nekkid Thursday but for some reason I've been running out parts of me to show. I come here to this place every day and I reveal pieces of myself to virtual strangers and yet somehow - you don't seem like strangers at all. You know what I've realized the older I get? It's hard for women to create and maintain friendships. I have some really good friends and for that I'm thankful but when I look back at all the people, women and men, that have carried the label of 'best friend', it saddens me how many of them have disappeared from my life. A few, hang on not by being present on a daily basis but by keeping me in their heart and every now and then reaching out and telling me 'I'm still on their mind.' I remember when I was younger, before puberty, when friendships seemed so much easier. Your friends were determined by who lived on your block, who you went to school with, who had the coolest toys or the most laid back parents. It's only when you reach puberty that the mind begins to complicate things. In high school friendships were created or broken on popularity - either you had friends because everyone liked you, or you had friends because no one liked them either. As adults it's less of a popularity contest but it still seems that somehow the friendships are so much more complicated. There's still the 'she said this, and they said that' component which I'll never understand. I've always been the type of person to say what's on my mind rather than play a cat and mouse game. Once not so long ago someone I considered my good friend told me that she wasn't getting anything out of our friendship so she chose to let it go. At the time I had just had a baby which was in itself a life altering event but I still tried to send emails asking how she was...apparently it wasn't enough. I didn't go out drinking all night, I didn't want to pick up 'boys' at the local pub, I wanted to be a mom and that ultimately ended our friendship. The thing is, I've always thought that friendships were not supposed to be about what you get from someone. Friendships should be about people coming together because of some like circumstance, some like feeling, some like pain, some like...something. What keeps them together is the willingness to keep them in your heart even when your 'like' changes.

Anyway, I'm rambling...but today while the rain falls heavily upon the streets washing away debris left behind from careless passer bys, my mind wanders back to places and times when things and people - were simpler. As I start a new journey I want to take the friends I have now, with me. That's all of you...I'm learning that sometimes if you want to create friendships, keep friendships, you have to be willing to reveal a little nekkidness.

2 Comments:

  1. Michelle said...
    I think about this all of the time, I have two very good friends but mostly all of the other people that I call friends are just social friends. We are friends when we see each other but do nothin outside of that. As I hug each one of them before they go on their way, I realize that even though they are just social friends they mean just as much as the two close friends that I have.
    Mama Dukes said...
    thank you for being my friend

    I love you for all you reveal so nekidly--your insides

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