Feeling Friends

Feeling Friendship
By Kathleen Melton

Throughout my life there have been many friends that have played an important role. Friends that have drifted in and drifted out; friends that lasted for a particular reason and friends that have stayed for many seasons; friends that became like family and that I can’t imagine my life without; and friends that walked away without caring, without notice, without my knowing why.

Losing a friend is painful. Whether by choice, by force, by circumstance, or by a natural drifting apart, the residual mark that friends leave on your life is indelible and cannot be erased.

Recently, many ‘old’ friends – friends I have not had contact with in five to twenty-five years - have been reappearing in my life. And while reconnecting with these new-old friends has been enjoyable, it also feels ironic that these relationships come at a time when I am struggling to keep current friendships alive. Friendships based on individuals and families. Friendships based on growing along with each other, with our kids, with our families, with the ever-changing world, and with our smaller world - our community of friendship - that we lovingly created.

I just learned that one friend from the “twenty-five plus years ago” group killed himself this past month. This has in turn, brought together a new level of reaching out within this group – reaching out to those who knew him, to others we might not have known well, but feel instantly connected to. We are reaching through time and entering each other’s lives once again, to honor this man, to remember him, to celebrate him and to try to understand what happened to him.

It has been an outpouring of urgent reconnection, of remembrance, and for me sadness. Perhaps if we had celebrated and honored him more while he was alive. Perhaps if we had connected with him before three weeks ago. Perhaps if we had told him that he was still in our thoughts, in our minds, in our hearts, and that he had indeed made an indelible print on our lives – on people that were assumed forgotten. Perhaps if we had shared how we feel, what we want, our thoughts, our lives. Perhaps. It is a perhaps we shall never know.

This event has moved me now to share my feelings with those relationships in my life that are being lost. With those whom I do not want to lose. With those whom I want to honor today, to reach out to today, to be there for and share with and laugh with and cry with today. Because we can. Still. Because I don’t want to ever feel, “Perhaps” with you. So, with a deep breath and a leap of faith….

I feel honored that I am able to call you my friend.
I feel thankful for the contribution you have made in my life.
I feel lonely without you.
I feel hurt by your words.
I feel pain that my feeling hurt is not acknowledged.
I feel unimportant in that lack of acknowledgement.
I feel sad that I am unable to communicate my feelings to you.
I feel disappointed that it is about being defensive.
I feel lost for words.
I feel sorrow when I want to pick up the phone.
I feel afraid to pick up the phone.
I feel so hopeless and sad that I feel afraid.
I feel misunderstood.
I feel insecure reaching out.
I feel unsure that any of this will make any sense.
I feel worried that it won’t.
I feel frightened that this may be mistaken as an attack and start another defensive reaction.
I feel attacked when I express my feelings.
I feel ignored and not heard.
I feel angry at the lack of understanding and communication.
I feel frustrated that I can’t figure out what the hell is going on.
I feel regret that our kids have drifted apart because we have.
I feel troubled that we can’t get past this.
I feel trapped in the decision to not talk.
I feel overwhelmed in the need to try to work this out.
I feel alone in that work.
I feel baffled.
I feel disbelief that others are incapable.
I feel cautious in expressing that.
I feel hopeless in knowing how to ask for what I want and need.
I feel resigned.
I feel accepting for what is, at the moment.
I feel melancholy and sad for that acceptance.
I feel fearful that this is the end.
I feel anxious because I never thought we would have one.
I feel relieved that I have shared this.
I feel content knowing I have.
I fell calm wafting over me.
I feel my tears drying.
I feel order being restored.
I feel curious about what is being felt by you.
I feel nervous that I may never know.
I feel resigned that there are limitations.
I feel love for you. For your family. For our history.
I feel enough.
I feel the indelible mark that has been made on my life.
I feel grateful. For you. My Friend.