#170 - Catching Up

This morning, I spent some time visiting the Boise Farmers' Market. It was my first visit of the year to the market, although I'd been telling myself I was going to go ever since it opened for the season back in April. Why do today what you can put off until next weekend, I guess.

The market was nice enough, but it was really only an added plus to my real reason for going downtown. My real reason for going downtown was to visit a friend and have a chance to catch up on what she's been up to.

Even though we live in the same city, we haven't seen each other in months, something that probably isn't all that unusual in our hectic paced world. I suspect most of us have trouble connecting as often as we'd like with friends - unless we happen to be lucky enough to work together in the same general location. Which she and I no longer do, although that was how we met in the first place.

I think we had a nice visit, talking about what we've been up to, what her future plans are, our families, etc. You know, the kinds of things friends talk about. I think perhaps we also discovered some additional things we have in common.

Tonight as I write this, thinking back on our conversation, one big difference between us really crystallized for me. I'd always known there were differences, in large part because of the difference in our ages, nearly 30 years, in fact. Of course, I've always been aware of that difference. Actually, I think most of the people I get along best with are much younger than I am, primarily because I don't feel old inside, and I'm not ready to be old outside.

Looking back on today's visit, though, the one thing I am most struck by is the real difference between us in terms of our stage of life. In some ways, I am marking the days until I can retire, at which point the next real adventure for me begins. She, on the other hand, is in many ways just getting started in life, even though she has already had more experiences than many people will have in their lifetimes.

In the last couple of years, my friend has mapped out a career path for herself and has embarked on the educational path necessary to be able to traverse that path, even while continuing to hold down a job. It's something that many people choose or feel they have to do these days, but the fact that many people do it does not make it any less difficult.

As I'm thinking about my friend, I realize that, because of school and work, she has to basically compartmentalize her life in order to make it all work. Everything - work, school, play - has to have its own box, its own cubby in order for everything to fit together, in order for her life not to fall into utter chaos.

Keeping it all together as she has done requires tremendous discipline. It's a word that came up a number of times during our conversation, and it's something we both professed to have difficulty with. I think she is selling herself way short.

The discipline that has allowed her to balance life, work, and school will also, I have no doubt, allow her to be very successful in her chosen career path, and the people she will be working with in her chosen field will be lucky to have her.

I am grateful she was able to make a space for me today in her busy schedule, and I do not say that lightly or sarcastically. It was a wonderful conversation and a wonderful morning spent catching up with a good friend. I'd have to say that most days, life doesn't get any better than that.

#140 - BFF (Best Friends Forever) or BFFN (Best Friends For Now) – Thoughts on Friendship

As we begin 2014, my 58^th on this planet (God, am I really that old?), I find myself doing some looking back and reflecting. I don’t know if that because looking back and reflecting is something many people do as they end one year and prepare to begin the next or because I am simply “at that age.” Regardless of the reason, I’m doing it.

Of course, for me, looking back at the past and reflecting on it is nothing new; it is something I’ve done quite a bit over the years. Some of those around me would likely argue I spend too much time dwelling on my past, and they would like be correct. However, there is one area of my past I’ve never spent as much time thinking about, and that is the friendships I’ve been part of over the years.

Perhaps that is because I’ve never considered myself as someone who has had a great many friends in my life. I’m not an easy person to get to know, and I may be an even harder person to get to like; I’ll let my friends (if any are still speaking to me after this) reflect on that. Still, I have had some meaningful friendships in my life, as well as some meaningful gaps in friendship.

The first real friend I remember having was George. George and I were best friends in elementary school for three years. Before we met, I don’t really remember having any friends; there was constantly trouble at home, and I put a great deal of energy into simple survival. There was a girl named Marsha that I played with, but I don’t remember us really being friends, although to this day I still remember her full name, the fact that she had blond hair, and that she wore blue horn-rimmed glasses. Not to mention that she was as tough as any of the boys.

George and I became friends when my mother, my sister, and I moved back into town from the small former mining community in which we had lived. The town was Rosamond, California. It wasn’t really notable for anything, except its relative proximity to Edwards Air Force Base. In the late 1960s, the town made a few headlines because of the uproar over the fact that the new north-south freeway (now known as the Antelope Valley Freeway) being built was possibly by-passing Rosamond, with the nearest on and off ramps set to be located several miles away in either direction. (We moved north before construction was completed, and the plans appear to have later been changed.)

George and I remained friends through fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. I don’t remember ever going to his house or him coming to mine, but we spent all of our free time at school together. We ate lunch together, cut up together, got in trouble together. I remember him having a flat-top haircut, a fairly popular cut for boys in those days.

We were thick as thieves, until the day in 1968 when my aunt loaded my sister and I into her Pontiac station wagon and moved us north to Seattle. (My mother would join us several months later.) We promised to stay in touch and did, in fact, trade a couple of letters, but by the start of 1969, the childhood friendship was over, victim of a trait I have been known to exhibit throughout my life, a failure to follow through and a willingness to cut ties and move on.

After another move a few miles south to Kent, Washington, I made a new best friend, one with whom I would navigate some of the difficult waters known as high school. Wally and I spent a lot of time together in the five years we were in junior high and high school. I don’t remember a lot from those days, as I continued to have my own battles for sanity and survival at home. But I do remember us walking through downtown Kent with two other friends in the dead of night, looking (unsuccessfully as I recall) from some place to get a pizza. I also remember one Fourth of July, one of the few times Wally came out to my house (we lived on the outskirts of town, a mile or so from the nearest residential neighborhoods), when he nearly blew off his fingers when a firecracker with a short fuse went off just as he was throwing it. My right ear rang for three days.

When we graduated from high school, Wally and I drifted apart, each of us off to different colleges. I saw him again a few years later when I received a surprise wedding invitation, then lost track again for a number of years until I talked him into attending a high school reunion. (I still don’t know if he’s forgiven me for that.) I think of us as still friends, though we have each built our adult lives separate from one another and have little contact with another aside from the occasional e-mail or Facebook post.

It would be another ten years before I formed any new close friendships, each lasting a few years at most. I’ve heard it said from time to time that people come into your life for a reason then leave when that reason is no longer valid or that need is no longer present. Looking back from this stage of my life, I can see that is probably true. The few friends I had growing up provided a lifeline that helped save me from the continual turmoil I felt in the family home.

Oddly enough, though, I suspect technology has altered that philosophy and will continue to alter the nature of how friendships build and are maintained. Case in point: fast-forward to 2008. I was taking a job with a grocery chain in its division office. The person coming in to train was the person whose place I was taking. She was not retiring or leaving the job voluntarily; she simply had no desire to move out of state. What could have been awkward turned into something special as we developed a rapport born out of humor, simply political views, and experiences to which the other person could relate.

Heidi and I have been what I consider best friends ever since, despite the fact that we have only seen each other on three separate occasions in the intervening five and a half years. A friendship such as ours would have been difficult, to say the least, five years ago. It would have been impossible, I suspect, before that. Technology has made our friendship possible and has allowed it to thrive.

Most of our friendship has played out via e-mail. I suspect we both communicate better through writing (I know I do), and I feel able to say things I might not otherwise share if not for e-mail. In the past, some of those messages have been lengthy tomes, as one of us would be dealing with something painful, and the other would offer words of encouragement and support. Some of the messages have been no more than a line or two, asking the other if he or she had big weekend plans. They are the kinds of conversations friends have, only in writing and conveyed electronically rather than in person and face-to-face. In a way, I suppose our friendship harkens back to the heyday of pen pals except that our friendship via electronic correspondence might be likened to pen pals on steroids.

Life is sometimes referred to as a race, one long lap in which you strive toward the finish line and your place in the hereafter. With the advent of e-mail and especially Facebook, which have allowed me to build new friendships and reestablish old ones, I feel as if I am getting to run a second lap. Thanks to technology, I am not “living in the past,” as Jethro Tull once sand. Instead, I have brought my past into the present and have worked to balance then and now. The journey continues.

#107 - An Ending and Perhaps a Beginning

"We'll always have Paris." - Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca
"Louis, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship." - Humphrey Bogart to Claude Rains in Casablanca

I was reminded of these two lines this weekend with the news that a co-worker and friend is leaving at the end of the week and moving to Pennsylvania. I'm not sure, but I may have been one of the last to hear the news. Apparently, I swing on the wrong grapevine.

Shannon is a friend in the Facebook sense, although not in the more traditional sense. We don't hang out together. She's never been to our house or vice versa. Still, I consider her a friend and one whose presence around the workplace I will miss a great deal.

One of the things I will miss most about Shannon is her smile. She has one of the warmest, brightest, and most genuine smiles I have been privileged to share. Suffice to say, if you were in a dark space in need of light, you could ask Shannon to smile and you would have all the light you need. There is also a sort of Cheshire cat quality about her smile, almost as if she knows something you don't and is debating whether to let you in on the secret.

I imagine that for a few weeks after Shannon's departure, the workplace will be a colder place. In thinking about this post, I had a flashback to the descriptions in the Harry Potter movies of how people felt after the dementors had come through, as if the joy had been sucked out of the world. A little over the top, but I  know that for a little while, laughter will seem a little more hollow around the workplace.

It is an undeniable truth that in life things change. Things change all the time, and nowhere is this more true than in Corporate America. Fortunately, Shannon's departure is not because of a decision to downsize but is due to a desire to reunite her family all in one location.

But change sometimes hurts. In my case, it will ache for a little while. I have been fortunate to have known a handful of wonderful women in my life. One, I have been married to for nearly 18 years, and she has the patience of Job where I am concerned. Another is the person whose job I took but who then became one of my closest friends. Shannon is among that group.

Come Friday, Shannon will be gone but not forgotten. As she said to me in an e-mail Sunday, "we will always have Facebook." It isn't Paris, but it is, I hope, the start of a beautiful friendship.

Looking Forward to 2009

The new year is upon us, and what a year it promises to be. Global economic meltdown, war and unrest nearly everywhere you turn, in short, not much cause for celebration.

Yet that it what many people around the world did last night, and in my own quiet way, I was among them. On a macro scale, there may not be reason for optimism, but on a micro scale there is, for each new year brings another chance for renewal. This year, I intend to take it.

When I was younger and somewhat idealistic, I made New Year's resolutions, ten of them each year, systematically, right at midnight. As I got older and less idealistic, I stopped making resolutions because I found I was unable or unwilling to keep any of them.

This year, my 53rd on this planet, I have decided to make some resolutions again because I know in heart this year will not be like any other I have lived. For me, that will be a good thing.

The end of 2008 saw me begin therapy and begin a journey into myself. That journey will continue in 2009 as I work to tear down the inner walls that have kept me from achieving all that I am capable of, loving others more fully and more deeply, and truly being a part of the human condition.

I am lucky and blessed to have the love and support of a wonderful wife, Teresa, who has stuck by me through good and bad for 15 years. She has seen what was possible in me and waited patiently for me to see it too.

I am equally blessed to have the encouragement, support, and friendship of perhaps the best friend I have ever had. Heidi's encouragement and caring nature helped me to find the road back to myself and to begin the journey toward inner healing.

I am very lucky to have two truly special women in my life. For them and for the others who share a part of my journey, I want to make 2009 my year of change. I want to begin the work toward becoming the best me I can be. Toward that end, I have made six resolutions for the coming year:

1. To be more open.
   
   This is a somewhat open-ended resolution, and it is meant to be. I hope to become more open to my feelings, to new experiences, and to those around me. I will work to not close myself off from others and make myself distant and unapproachable.
   
   
2. To make new and more connections with others.
   
   I have had a number of wonderful people pass in and out of my life through the years, and I have managed to lose touch, lose connection with all of them. I am now fortunate to know some wonderful people, a few of whom I call friends, others whom I hope to be able to call friends in 2009. That will require me not closing off from others.
   
   
3. To release the writer inside me and to make the time to write.
   
   For years, I have always said I wanted to be a writer, but outside of a few spurts here and there I did not write. I spent more than a decade in broadcasting because it gave me a writing outlet, but I never pursued much writing beyond that. Lately, I have begun writing lyrics and poetry again. This blog is also an extension of my rediscovered desire to write. In 2009, I intend to continue this blog and to extend into short stories and perhaps other fiction.
   
   
4. To grow as a husband, as a father, and as a friend.
   
   These three areas represent my greatest shortcomings in the past, as I have not been all I could be in any of these areas. That will change in 2009, even as it began to change at the end of 2008. Teresa and Heidi have already given me opportunities to grow in two of those areas. My son will, no doubt, provide ample opportunity to grow in the remaining area.
   
   
5. To open the door to my life and to be the change I seek.
   
   This resolution comes out of reading the Conversations with God series of books by Neale Donald Walsch, which I highly recommend. One of the themes that runs through these books is the idea of believing you already have whatever it is you seek and you will find that you have it.
   
   
6. To take better care of myself and of the gifts I have been given.
   
   I have abilities I have never taken full advantage of or used to their fullest capability. 2009 is the year that starts to change. The care I speak of is three-fold: physical, mental, and emotional. I have begun the process toward taking better emotional care of myself, which will also help bring my mental side into better balance. As that occurs, I will then add in the physical component so that I can better enjoy the people and the things around me.

I hope 2009 also turns into a year of tremendous opportunity and growth for each of you.

Merry Christmas

The last gifts have been wrapped and put under the tree. My son and my wife have both gone to bed, and I sit here early on this Christmas morning and ponder what it is I truly want this year.

For most of the run up to this Christmas I have been dreading the day and its arrival. Now that it is here, however, I am at last ready for it. I am ready for the anticipation and the joy in my son's face when he opens a package to find something he asked for as well as the disappointment he will no doubt express when he doesn't get everything he asked for.

There will probably be a few packages under the tree with my name on them, but I have already received the best Christmas gifts I have ever been given - an opportunity for redemption, a chance to redeem my life and live it as it always should have been lived. Not in fear or guilt but in love and joy.

What made that gift possible was a possibly even greater gift - the gift of one person to another. One person who could easily have treated me with resentment and even hatred but instead showed kindness and compassion. She gave of herself and of her self. In the process, she pointed the way to my self and helped to set me on the road to wholeness.

Heidi, mere words of thanks do not seem adequate. You rose above your own cares to offer me encouragement and friendship. That gift is beyond measure. I truly believe you were sent by God to help me find my way out of the wilderness. For that, I will always be grateful.

My wish for everyone this Christmas and in the new year to come is that each of you will find such a friend. They are hard to come by, but when you do find such a friend you are truly rich beyond compare. This Christmas, I count myself amongst the richest men on Earth. I have a family that loves me and a friend who encourages me and allows me to be more than I have ever been. I am truly blessed.

Merry Christmas!

Random Thoughts

I've always had a hard time making friends. I suspect that is because I see a friend as someone more than a person to talk sports or politics or music with. To me, a friend has always been someone with whom you could share your deepest hopes and fears and dreams, even more than perhaps you can with your spouse.

I am at present lucky enough to have such a friend. How long the friendship will last, given the intensity of the things we sometimes talk about, I won't try to guess. She may decide the friendship needs to end in order to preserve her own sanity, and who could blame her? Certainly not I.

Tomorrow, I begin the journey of a lifetime as I begin what may be weeks, months, or more likely years of therapy to help me dig up and expose to the light issues that date back to my childhood. My friend has been a support and encouragement in this process that lead to my decision to seek help.

As I told her, for too long I have been treading water, and I am now starting to get tired. Therapy is my chance at a life preserver before I get too tired to grab it. While there are no guarantees in therapy, I am certain I am lost without it. I look at this as the fight of my life and for my life. My friend believes I can make it, and I am very appreciative of that belief in me.

For too long, my life has been nothing more than going through the motions. For some time to come, it will be a day by day process, but with the help and support of my family and of my dear friend, I can come out on the other side and one day walk in the light instead of hiding in the darkness.

Be well.

Slippin' Into Darkness

The title of the old War song seems appropriate these days, as that is what I feel is happening to my life.

I don't know how to explain it except that it feels a bit like walking in a fog with limited visibility. Each step must be planned and taken carefully lest you slip and completely lose your balance. That is my life at present.

I have been unable to explain to my wife or my son what is going on. I don't really know how. So we dance this uncomfortable dance of trying not to say or do the wrong thing, dancing to a tune none can hear.

Instead, I have burdened the one true friend I feel can understand these things to the point where if she were to tell me should could no longer be my friend I would understand and probably tell her she is doing the right thing. Assuming, of course, I could stop crying long enough to get the words out.

Crying has been one of the more interesting and frightening aspects of this descent. I have never been a very emotional person, always saying what I thought was the right thing but never really feeling anything. I had all but assumed I could not feel, I had buried things away for so long.

But in the last two weeks I have cried, more than I have in the last 20 years, I suspect. Two boxes of tissues in two days. If I'm not at rock bottom yet, I can see it from where I wallow.

And when I am not crying, I'm nearly comatose. I look in the mirror and I see the epitome of what they used to call Buster Keaton, "The Great Stone Face". Only sadder.

I am now in full-blown survival mode as I try to get from one day to the next until my first of what i suspect will be many sessions of professional help. To those who are standing by me, thank you. I'm sorry for what I have put you through. If God believes in me, perhaps things will one day be a little brighter. Until then, I struggle to find my way through the darkness and the shadows.

Giving Thanks

It is that time of year once again when young and old alike gorge themselves on a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, whether it be turkey or ham (in our case, turkey), with all the trimmings. Then, they'll collapse on the sofa to watch the traditional Thanksgiving football blowout and watch a bunch of other overstuffed men run around and get exercise for them.

Despite recent economic events, we are lucky to live in a country where so many of us have reason to be thankful. I invite you to take some time on Thanksgiving to make a mental list of those things for which you are thankful and then give silent thanks for each of them. Here's my list:

I am thankful for my family, first and foremost. They ground me and give me sanctuary from the emotional storms in which I sometimes find myself.

I am thankful that I live in an area that lends itself to outdoor activity and that I have the ability and desire to enjoy such activity, whether it be camping, bike riding, or snowshoeing. In fact, we will be camping over Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for new friends, old friends, and lost friends. Each has been an important part of my journey. I remember lost friends fondly even as I mourn their loss. I cherish the people who are part of my life now and hope they will remain a part of my life for years to come. I relish the new friends I have made or will make and pray I will not abuse or squander the gift they have given me.

Yet I know that there are also those who will struggle to find something this Thanksgiving for which they are thankful. I hope you will join me in saying a kind word or in thinking a good thought for them as you sit down to your holiday meal this year.

May you find plenty for which to be thankful this year. May you have even more for which to be thankful in the year to come. Happy Thanksgiving.

Requiem For A Friend

I cried for a friend last night. Those tears did not come because I had received news that some tragedy occurred. In a sense, my tears were tears of anticipated grief. First, some history.

This friend and I are co-workers, separated by some 340 miles. The circumstances of our friendship are potentially the stuff of soap operas. You see, in essence, I was hired to take her place with her in the awkward role of training her replacement. I had, just a little earlier, escaped a similar fate when my previous position was outsourced.

She had every right to be angry, bitter, resentful, insert your adjective here. But she was none of those things. Instead, she was kind, helpful, supportive, and encouraging. Her demeanor was everything you would want from a trainer.

Her position had been moved here as part of a consolidation, and because she had a life where she lived, she was understandably reluctant to move. I had been in a similar type of position years earlier, and having to move is not fun, so I sympathized.

In fact, I felt guilty for, in essence, taking her job, not because of anything she said or did but because of everything she said or did. I began to feel as if a cruel trick had been played on her. Through it all, she remained supportive and helpful, and a mutual respect developed.

My training required her to make visits to my location, so we did meet twice. Both visits were friendly, and we developed a comfort level around each other. But a friendship had not yet begun to develop.

That began to occur, I think, after she returned to her home. As the new kid on the block, I had questions about the work, and I would ask them: over the phone, through instant messaging, via e-mail. After a while, we began to talk about other things: politics, music, feelings, life.

The odd thing about our budding friendship is that, for the most part, it has developed through e-mail. Perhaps that isn't such a surprise given the electronic age in which we live. In some ways, it is the 21st Century equivalent of having a pen pal.

In some sense, that may make it easier to sustain the friendship when she and I no longer have work as a common footing. Yet the same thing that may make it easier to keep the friendship alive may also make it easy to let it die. One day, one of us may decide to no longer answer the e-mail of the other. I certainly don't intend to let that happen, but who can say with certainty what the future holds. Something could happen to one or the other of us, and the remaining friend may be completely in the dark.

This sounds fatalistic, I know, but it is based on my past attempts to sustain relationships long distance. Life tends to get in the way. In my past career in journalism, I lost every friend I had because of moving to a new job in a new city. Because I make friends with great difficulty, each loss was very painful. To this day, I remember each of them with a mixture of good and bad feelings.

Yet I persisted, and I will continue to persist. I do not meet people easily, but I know I need them in my life. I hope this friendship lasts. I want it to last. It may not, but I will enjoy each moment of it while I do have it.

I am not a wise man, but I have finally learned one thing in my time here. The one thing worse than losing a friend is never having had the friend to begin with. Here's to you, my friend.