Two Kinds of Friends

Several recent events have put me in a pensive mood, lately. Or, perhaps I should say a more pensive than usual mood, since I think I am just pensive by nature. At any rate, much of my pensiveness is focused on relationships. Primarily friendships. What makes them? What makes a good friendship? And, why can't I spell friendship? (Thank you spell check.)

It seems that the last couple of months have really brought some highs and lows in the annals of me and friends. Now, I don't want to give you the impression that I am spending time on the phone engaged in some sort of I-don't-believe-he-would-do-that-how-can-I-still-be-his-friend kind of drama. It's really more of the looking back on friends I have had and friends I have in a time of change and, well, just contemplating.

Now, it seems, I have a lot of friends in a lot of places. Who doesn't? But, it wasn't long ago, I thought I would always have the same group of friends who all lived within ten miles of each other. In hindsight, that was a silly notion. And, had my life turned out that way, I most likely would have been the worse off for it.

I was not an Army brat as a child. My parents were not in a witness protection program (if such a thing even exists). My mom or dad never worked in an industry that forced them to relocate often. We stayed put. From my birth until I was thirty, Baltimore was my home. Pulling up stakes in 1999 seemed like the hardest thing I would ever have to do. I was leaving my family. I was leaving my friends. Some of these friends I had known for decades, some I had known for a few years. They all seemed like the best friends I might ever have.

Leaving family was hard, but, I knew I would always maintain my contact with them. I knew I would always come back to see them. Maybe I wouldn't be able to get back as often as I wanted, but, I'd still see them. The friends were another matter.

We all swore we'd keep in touch. We'd write. We'd phone. We'd email. For a while, we did. But, after some time had passed, after they had grown used to me being somewhere else and had busied themselves with their ongoing lives, after I had settled in to CoMo and began to grow a brand new social life, the communication trickled, trickled, and died. I still occasionally keep in contact with a person or two from back in Mobtown, but, for the most part, it's a surprise when I hear from anyone (or when they hear from me). This may seem like a story behind which some Eastern European strings should be playing, minor and slow, but, it's not. This is simply a function of life.

In Missouri, one close friend moved on, leaving a large hole in my life (and Monkey's). However, we stayed in close touch. We see each other regularly (but not often). We are, indeed, still close friends. Even after more years than I care to mention, our friendship seems to have survived a physical separation. Other friends moved on. Some I still connect with (some right here on the ol' Central Standard), while others are simply moving in other spheres, I guess. As my time in Missouri drew to a close, as people left me behind, or I prepared to move on myself, the situation seemed to repeat itself. After a year away, the number of people I stay in regular contact with is small, but, it encompasses the closest of my friends from that most central of central Missouri towns.

And, now, here in Cornopolis, the situation repeats itself, as close friends we have had the chance to meet and quickly grow to love are heading off to greater opportunity. It is a sad, sad feeling, losing friends, but, really, I realize, it is not a loss.

As this school year began, I was introduced to an essay by Jane Howard called, "Families," which appeared several years ago in The Atlantic Monthly. In her essay, Howard uses some terminology from a tribe in Cameroon which identifies two kinds of friends, friends of the road and friends of the heart. Friends of the road are people that you are with by chance: classmates and other people who are somehow in a social group in which you circulate. They are people you like, but, you come to be with them mostly through convenience. On the other hand, friends of the heart are those whom you choose to be in contact with. Those formerly friends of the road who are no longer convenient, yet still draw you to them (and you draw them, too). Reading this essay was definitely a case of the right text at the right time.

I have had many friends of the road, and I am grateful for them and the time we've spent together, but I truly treasure those friends of the heart who have come into my life and stuck there, even when far out of sight, and without the parting, as painful as it is, they don't get to make the jump from the road to the heart. So, I guess I am comforted by the revelation that good friends gone are somehow better friends. The inability to spend more time with them might make one unhappy, but the quality of the relationship grows if the connection is strong enough to transcend distance.

Thanks for listening, friends.