i don’t think i’ve ever really written about such a thing here. a true oversight, but not without reason. however, reason no more and so, i shall.
(recording available: love-of-a-good-friend )
if you know me, then you know i have experienced, at best, an ‘interesting’ life. most of it has been fraught with the sporadic comings and goings of others, usually in very abrupt or hostile manner. for some time, i have really wondered if i would ever meet anyone that would be more than a brief and explosive blip on life’s radar.
don’t get me wrong, i have a small and very precious set of friends that mean the world to me. but most are busy with their own lives and frankly, i’m just not a part of it. it is not a thing i often begrudge, but when i have, i’ve done it the same way i’ve ever done anything — wide open, at full intensity, and without shame, care, or guilt for it.
tonight, i am not speaking of any of those or any of that.
tonight, i am speaking and writing instead of someone who has so completely broken the mold of my life’s experience that i’m almost without words to define just how utterly they have done so.
there is a tendency to extol on it. but i really don’t need to. simple words will do very nicely. there is an eloquence in simplicity that will, i think, speak more pointedly than any extravagance could manage and, besides, there are some things in life that extravagance does disservice.
think for a moment of the one person in your life that you would say you have the deepest sense of belief, trust, and care for and of. perhaps it is a parent. perhaps a brother or sister. perhaps some other relation. maybe a preacher, a teacher, a mentor or a best friend.
now imagine you have never known them. in fact, imagine you have spent your entire life never once meeting anyone at all like them. what would that life be like to you?
there are some things in life that are so precious and pure that we tend to take them for granted if we have them and, if we never have, we eventually turn somewhat bitter for the lacking. resentful, being fully aware of what is being missed even as we’ve never had it. it’s an odd place to be, because most times, it creates a barrier to ever really enjoying it. it becomes somewhat its own self-fulfilling prophecy over time.
i am having a deja vu moment. i look at the preceding paragraphs and i have written them before, in a dream. it makes me smile. you know why if you read here.
i’m so flustered that i’m floundering. perhaps wandering. i wanted to write something special and meaningful in relation to the treasure i have found in the love of this, a good friend. but once more i am frustrated for how words really do not work.
the adjectives are all known. how can they be used here when they cannot possibly relay how i feel?
i am not a person of half measures. i never have been. frankly, i never want to be. so when i think about trying to say any of this, i am both stimulated to the point of an almost physical pain as well as aggravated to the point of incoherence because it all rushes up and i can’t get it out…. me, a writer, bottlenecked with it.
hah.
i have loved and cared for a great many people in my life. there are a number of them that i would (and on occasion, have) gone well above and beyond for…. but as much as i love and care for them all, there have been lines i would not cross. things i would not do.
with this friend, for this friend, i can honestly say that there are no lines, no boundaries, nothing forbidden. this, for me, is a first. a first in the entirety of my life. a happy first. i smile to say/write it. i am glad, thankful, and content to be able to do so.
for the first time in my life, i actually know what it is to have someone in my life that is as willing as i am to be fearless in relation to one another. it is a nourishment to soul. you have no idea. truly.
i forget who said it, but someone whose name you’d know once wrote that ‘friendship is love without its wings.’
respectfully, i beg to differ. friendship flies on wings that would set those of eros to quiet, folded shame. i know… i have the love of a good friend.
someone else once wrote that true friends are rare, like precious gems. yet another said that a true friend is someone who really knows you, and loves you anyway.
tonight, while speaking with this friend, they told me that they were almost reluctant to introduce me to anyone else because they were afraid they would not have from me the same things that we now share. it made me smile because it said so much more than what was spoken.
my friend, there is no one else on this earth, in this life, who is to me as you are to me. nor will there ever be. i can say it with perfect trust in its truth because, of all the things i have known, seen, experienced in this life, i have never known anyone like you…. and i am glad that i now do.
i love that you humble me. i love that you endure me. i love that you value me. i love that you listen to me. i love that you cherish me. i love that you’re always there for me. i love that you care enough for me to always grant me the benefit of the doubt. but i love you most of all for how you give yourself to me so freely…. perfect trust, perfect faith, perfect view…. any one of them would be a blessing, to have all of them is nigh a miracle.
you are a miracle to me, my friend, and i appreciate you, thank you, and love you for it.