An Essay A Day For A Year
By Roe
Day 6, January 6, 2012
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I had a dream last night that I had a lot of real friends. I would so much like to have that dream again, because I can’t remember feeling so happy. Now the idea lingers in my head and pulls on my heart strings exactly what a real friend is. Well… I’ve gotten used to the idea that my world is upside down. Either I flipped over as a little tyke when my boat got floated, or Columbus was wrong and I fell off the end of the flat world somewhere. Hello? Are there any real friends out there?
Real friendship is the purest form of love. Familial love comes with many biological and moral responsibilities of blood and legacy, while friendship is fully voluntary. Conjugal or sexual love comes with many procreative and hierarchical power issues, and real friends are equals and don’t exchange genitals. Falling in real friendship is like falling in love, you may only do it a mere few times, but the kindling in your heart keeps you warm for a lifetime. We say with trepidation and vulnerability to only the specially privileged few in our life, “I love you”, yet “he or she is my friend” we say as often as we put our shoes on. That made me think of how very broad the word is. I really think we become acquainted with our shoes and many, many people every day and throughout our lives, but we fall in real friendship even more rarely than we fall in love or fall in family. My heart knows why that is, and yours does too.
If you look in the Roe-ster or Ann-ster or John-ster dictionary under “real friend”, it says “ my real friend reciprocates my equal and profound connection of heart ‘no matter what’. And that’s all we need to know. You don’t love me because you have to right? You don’t love me because we are so attracted to each other for oingy boingy right? You fully feel and exchange for and with me what I feel and exchange for and with you right? And you’ll be there for me no matter what right? There are no ifs, ands, or buts, right?
When we fell in real friendship I was young and beautiful and kind and ambitious and smart and responsible and caring. Now I’m old and ugly and lazy and daft and irresponsible and careless. I disappeared without notice the day after I took drugs with your fiancé and ended up in the same bed with her on your wedding night, now I call you 5 years later in a storm during your Christmas dinner, from a Turkish prison where I am doing life for smuggling drugs that I give to defenseless Turkish puppies, because I raise them to sell for suicide missions in war. I say on the phone “Hey John, or Anne, it’s Roe, I really need your help, please help me”.
Please excuse me for stating the obvious, but in my heart and all human hearts, we hope and dream of Indiana John and Anne and You dropping everything and risking everything and hijacking (politely) Air Force One full of crack medieval ninja troops (come on, be creative), who come to our rescue, and we know absolutely in our hearts there will be no doubt, no hesitation, no guilt speech, and no rejection. That, our heart knows, is a real true friend. And there is more!. When we are safe again back aboard Air Force One trying to explain to the president why all the ninjas don’t have tickets, he says, “you two must be real friends!” And you reply “I’ll show you real friends prez!” You then unkindly scream at me and insult me, “why you stupid old ugly lazy cheating irresponsible drug dealing puppy exploiting war mongering worthless asshole!. What the bleep bleep bleep is wrong with you?. How could you be so…., and how could you…, and why did you!...and that is just the beginning.
And you missed me, and I missed you, and a day hasn’t gone by that I did not think of you, and a day has not gone by that you did not think of me, and it feels like I saw you and loved you and mistreated you yesterday, and it feels like you saw me and loved me and mistreated me yesterday. No ifs baby, no ands honey, no butts buddy. A real friend has permission to make all the mistakes we hope they won’t, and we and they are sure that real friendship is designed for this.
It wouldn’t be kind or polite to hurt or mistreat a stranger or acquaintance, yet it is part of the contract with a real friend. If you can not mess up real bad and at the wrong time and place with me, my beautiful friend, with whom and when and where can you? To be my real friend you don’t have to read a polite book, take an ethics class, make an appointment, or earn the right, for if you did, then the book could be ignored, the class could be failed, the appointment missed, and the right denied, and that is impossible. I hereby declare my love for you unconditionally. All of it, now, and forever.
And I have the right to be me too, with all my gorgeous ugliness and mal-timed perfection, misplaced genius, and good old fashioned “does it matter?”. Because if it does, then we have not fallen in real friendship, we have entered into a conditional acquaintanceship, a fair weather maybe, and a no right to call each other a friend-ship. Real friendship has no rules except: I love you, and I’ve got your back, (I’ve got your everything), forever, end of story. Real friendship is an exchange of hearts, fully and irrationally exchanged, like lateral lovers of just liking each other. Real friends are foul weather companions, “when the going gets tough, we reach out for our real friends. And during our needy ugliness our friendship remains the same, whether it was 5 minutes ago or 20 years, we reunite with the same gleam in our eyes and warmth of heart.
Friendship means no rules, for rules are set and enforced by the brain, not the heart, the heart not being a policeperson. Your brain may say, “euw!, I’m so angry or sad or disappointed in your behavior you jerk!”, but your heart only feels, “wow, it’s my friend, it’s my friend. It’s my friend!” Your brain ages with the miles of logistics and data and record keeping, and the size of the pride that stands before you and your love, while somewhere in there your heart is a pristine toddler full of the teary eyes of joyful connection. “I just like you, I just like you, I just like you!”
And yes this means that a real friend has the license to do anything that fate and free will can throw at us, and we have the same, and the depth of our challenge to love and endure is measured by the size of, “you can, but I hope you won’t”, and “I can’t promise I won’t, but I’ll try!” And that will have to be good enough. It is not a real friendship until otherwise negotiated or decided, and it is not a friendship that turns to enmity or apathy or change, it is a real friendship that precedes negotiation, outlives apathy, and endures change, because friendship is heart to heart, and hearts no not of scales or mathematics or logistics tits for tats.
The manual in my capsized boat that fell of the end of the flat world with me tells me that every real friend you ever had and lost is still your real friend, and all that is standing in both or your way is fairness and justice and pride. And that is what is so beautiful about real friends, even fairness and justice and pride are fair game. The manual doesn’t say anywhere that you have to get anything right, or when, or why. It just says…..
See you tomorrow my real true friend. I love you.
yourpersonalmuse@gmx.com
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