Friends

The Value of the Oldest Friendships

The early days which seem forever ago, and not too important at the time, later hold keys that are unexpectedly life affirming.

 This is my sixtieth year and although it is a year of new beginnings it is also the year that my oldest friendships have claimed their truest place of honor.   There is nothing so sweet as being in the embrace of  someone who knew you then.  When your lives were full of irreverence and health. Better still is having a friend with a good memory, even if it takes a few old friends to piece the story into a coherent tale.

The melancholy of aging falls aside to the sheer joy at recall.  Life makes more sense, is less disjointed.  I feel whole again with old friends in my new life. Part of the sweetness is the ease with which we express our loving kindness, eighteen or twenty one or forty years later.

I have been blessed with time and a full pantry of friends who waited patiently for this celebration while at the front line of their own lives. Thank you to everyone who has reappeared with insight and loving hearts.  This surely is our purpose here on earth.

My Heart's Desire

 We can agree on Maslov's hierarchy of needs to be sure. This diagram represents a kind of  Cliff Notes for the wealth of complexity in each of these needs.  My heart's desire lies in the need for Love/ Belonging I think. More specifically the need to be fully known and fully vulnerable (loved and unconditionally accepted) by another human being.  Not to be confused with the idea of having someone "complete me" (which I think is poppycock) or the idea of being made safe or worthy through a relationship with another (which I think is next to impossible).

I'm wondering if my heart's desire is an illusion and like so much else it is through Self Actualization that  I will create love and unconditional acceptance for myself.  At least before I expect to receive it from some one else. Is a Mother's Love the exception, or is that also an illusion? Perhaps a Mother's Love is the metaphor for my heart's desire.  Ok, I know it is.

In the meanwhile, again, I am blessed with the love of those around me and I'll be working on internalizing my Mother's Love along the way.

The Question at all Crossroads

I have asked myself this question, you have likely asked yourself this question too.  I quote from Embracing Ourselves, by Hal and Sidra Stone: "How is this person, or this situation, my teacher?"

Indeed, how?  Many years ago in a therapeutic session, after describing my interactions with a difficult person, the therapist said, "So he was your guru."  I was taken back and found a lot of clarity in that remark at the time.  Then there are other days, like now, when the thought of trying to discern what the lesson is just gives me a headache.

A few nights ago I had a lively conversation with a Dad of two boys, age 10 and 11.  He actually gave me the perfect  opening for my "pornified culture" launch when he made a remark about the current target age for Barbie marketing, which he claimed to be age 6.  This Dad told me that he and his wife worked quite diligently at helping their boys identify and express feelings to the point where one of the boys (and he mimicked him covering his face) responded to what must have felt like an interrogation by blurting out ,"I don't know what I'm feeling!".  Some days are like that for 11 year old boys, and 59 year old girls.

Tonight I don't know what I'm feeling and I have no idea how this person, or this situation, is my teacher.  We don't always have to know.