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Friends in faraway places
Last summer I said goodbye to a very dear friend.
We'd only known one another for three years and I'd always known that her presence in my everyday life was going to be temporary - but that didn't stop me sobbing for 24 straight hours on the day that she left town.
I have other friends, many of them of the highest imaginable calibre - the kind of friend you feel you should only really have once in a lifetime - and yet I am surrounded by some seriously special dames. I know that makes me lucky; blessed; spoiled - call it what you will.
And yet, despite the presence of so many exemplary friends, today I just got swept away by this excruciating attack of missing that one dear friend who doesn't call this town home anymore.
A maelstrom of emotions and a difficult day left me keenly feeling the gap left by her departure. I could have called her, I suppose, but for the first time since she left I was overcome with the urge to put the world to rights with her alone; convinced that an hour in her presence would have restored everything to its rightful place. There's so much she would have understood about what has been swirling round inside my head. We would have needed no introduction to our topic of conversation, and had she known I was coming over she'd have had my favourite hot drink on the go, served exactly as I like it. Skype is amazing, but it can't do that.
I was surprised by the intensity of the weird ache that washed over me at the mention of her name this afternoon, and it's no coincidence that I physically recoiled when someone suggested that I ‘reach out' to another mutual friend who could maybe do with company. It's not personal at all but I don't want new friends. I just want an hour with my old friend and if I can't have that, I'd rather be alone.
The older I get, the more it seems that the friends I treasure the most are the ones I see the least. What's up with that, and how do you maintain a sense of sisterhood across the miles?
Do I just have to man up to scheduling relationship maintenance through the wonders of modern technology, or is it easier to let go and live by the rule of ‘out of sight, out of mind'?
That doesn't work for me.
I think I'm an absence makes the heart grow fonder kinda girl.
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Comments (10)
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Mon Feb 6, 2012 - 3:19 pm
I, too, have friends in faraway places. You just have to make an effort to stay in touch.Reply -
1 reply, Last reply by Heidi_Scrimgeour on Mon Feb 6, 2012 at 6:23 pm
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Mon Feb 6, 2012 - 5:03 pm
Yeah I don't know how you create a sense of sisterhood over miles - it is probably a lot of hard work and I am pretty lazy in this respect. I have lived in USA for 11 years - I moved from the UK and initially one pines for the old friends but now I have made so many new friends that I only get that nostagic feeling now and again.Reply -
1 reply, Last reply by Heidi_Scrimgeour on Mon Feb 6, 2012 at 6:22 pm
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Report Mon Feb 6, 2012 - 10:08 amThis post made me let out a long sigh. I have had the same issue and now it's been so many years that my closest friends who I treasure the most, just don't know my life 'issues' anymore. I recently 'lost' a neighbour, and mourned the loss of a whole family, I still get that ache. Weird isn't it? I can't offer any solutions..... Phone/skype, it just doesn't work. Only meeting face to face does it. Try and do it as often as you can (this may be once a year or less!). Don't let the friendship slip away.Reply -
1 reply, Last reply by Heidi_Scrimgeour on Mon Feb 6, 2012 at 2:40 pm
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Report Mon Feb 6, 2012 - 2:25 pmThere might just be something in the "absence makes the heart grow stronger" thing - My wife for one says she much prefers me when I'm not there...Reply
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1 reply, Last reply by Heidi_Scrimgeour on Mon Feb 6, 2012 at 2:39 pm
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Report Mon Feb 6, 2012 - 2:27 pmI know this feeling SO well. Since my daughter was born, I could have gone to mother and baby groups, or made friends with other Mums now that she's at Nursery, but I kind of don't want to. My best friend has moved three times in the last two years, once out-of-county, once back to the same county but about 25 miles away. Between my working/mothering and her studying and looking after three boys under three, we just never seem to get enough time together. I've probably seen her half a dozen times in the last three years and sometimes I feel like I'm missing a limb. She's the only person in the world who knows me, all of my foibles and my past. Every time we're together, I still feel like there's about 8 hours worth of chatting that I still had left to do before we'd gone over everything we needed to. I don't know what the answer is. If you find it, let me know, yeah?Reply
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1 reply, Last reply by Heidi_Scrimgeour on Mon Feb 6, 2012 at 2:39 pm
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