Owls and Orchids

There is so much talked and written about friendship. It is one of the greatest gifts you can give to someone.  It warms your heart, it is a place you can go to when you hurt and someone you can trust to hear your every thought when you are so confused you don’t know what to do.  It is one of the rarest treasures to be found.  It cannot be bottled or sold, it must be earned, because friendship is based on trust.

It can also shred your heart into pieces, leave you devastated and betrayed and make you want to curl up and forget you woke up that morning.

This is not confined to friends or acquaintances, it can also be family, loved ones. The people you most likely will never expect to ‘turn on you’ in your time of need.  Let’s face it, with the stresses and strains of modern life we all need more than a casual shoulder to lean on.  We need to know that if we have placed our trust and faith in a friend that they will not find something more interesting to do when you call and need to talk.

Perhaps it’s just me, I’m no longer sure. I may be too difficult to get along with.  I may have more thorns than a prickly pear let alone a rose and no one wants to be bothered picking out the prickles any longer.  The pathetic and sad fact is that I don’t have a friend I can call or write to any longer.

image from therockatbc.com

I had a friend I wrote to without fail, every year for nearly forty years. We never missed a birthday or Christmas. Since coming to Australia it has been confined to letters, but that’s okay, I’ve always enjoyed writing letters.  Two years ago I had the Christmas card and letter I sent returned,”Not known this address”.  How odd I thought and checked the internet.  Nope, they were still registered at the same place.   Two years later they are still registered at the same address and I have no idea what, if anything, has happened to cause the sudden change of heart.

However, she was my last friend.  I had slowly over the years, found that one by one they had dropped off. Divorce has a way of culling friends very quickly.  Some would say it showed how much of a friend they really were. Perhaps that is so. However, at a time when I needed a friend more than ever before, I found not one of my quite large circle of supposed friends willing to take the time to speak to me or to meet me for coffee, and the last time I dropped around to see someone, I was made to feel so unwelcome (the icicles were forming on the ceiling) that I haven’t tried again. No  I haven’t heard from them either.  I didn’t know the heart was able to shrivel that way, but it certainly feels like it. One hurt wasn’t enough, it needed company it seems.

image from glogster.com

It’s not the end of the earth, I hear you say. There are many ways to make friends; join groups, start a class to learn something new, say hello to people in your street, join a church group or an interest group. The lists are endless.  Most good friendships, in my opinion, are either started whilst at school, during your intense work period when interests bind you first and then develop, childbirth and rearing, or through a crisis of some kind.  What happens when they are exhausted, or perhaps worse, you are exhausted from the effort and rejection you have already been through. You close down to save yourself from more hurt.

I don’t have the answers to this one. You see I’m rather tapped out with my previous efforts and failures. Does this mean it’s me who is the ‘square peg in the round hole?” I don’t know.  I do know that when I was challenged recently to take five minutes to call, write or be with a friend my heart melted one more time.

I am longing for my dog who passed away, Rusty, …. with him I had a friend who never turned away when I needed a cuddle, a sloppy kiss if I was sad or simply sat with me if I was feeling low.  The best friend a girl could ever have. I miss him so much, to this day, especially this day.

So for all those who recognise themselves in this blog, or find the challenge of calling, writing or being with a friend today, beyond your abilities, I will be your friend, because I know what it feels like to have that hollow feeling of emptiness inside.

image from dostoyreflects.blogspot.com

Welcome, one and all.

“No one can be happy without a friend, nor be sure of a friend until he is unhappy”. –Thomas Fuller