I received two bits of news the other day – and they came from opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of good and bad.
In spite of that, both pieces of news had a lot in common – most significantly that they both came as a complete surprise to me, which was primarily because I have not been as good as staying in touch and keeping up with friends – even though they are more or less “local” and not half a world away.
I posted one of my silly status updates on Facebook (shocking, I know! I mean, how often do I do something like that?), and a very dear friend commented on the post that
a) she didn’t understand why she couldn’t stop laughing so hard (I understood why – no matter how immature the joke was, it was funny as hell!) and
b) we really should get together before she gives birth in the next 2 months.
This blew me away – I had no idea that she is even pregnant! Now, understand – this is not some casual “take her or leave her” kind of a friend. This is a woman who, years ago when Sharon and I were considered a “young, recently married couple” was a regular guest in our house – during the week, and even more so on Shabbat (she was one of those friends who felt comfortable calling us on Friday morning and saying that she didn’t have a place for Shabbat dinner that night, and what could she bring - that close of a friend).
When our oldest child, Revital was born, this friend was one of the first to visit us in the hospital and hold the new baby. And she has watched the girls grow up and they know her so well that she got married about 3 years ago, it was worth keeping the girls up later than usual on a week night to be at her wedding. She really is one of the friends that we have felt exceptionally close to for many years.
Yet, I didn’t even know that she was expecting her second child.
What makes it even worse is that we haven’t seen her since before she gave birth to her first child a couple of years ago. We’ve seen pictures on line, but have never met this sweet little girl! (Even though we haven’t met her, it goes without saying that based on who her parents are of COURSE she is a sweet little girl!)
The whole thing made me realize how much I have let myself lose touch with somebody who is very important to me. And if I’m so out of touch with this friend, one who was essentially an “adopted” member of our household, how much more out of touch am I with other friends that I also treasure that maybe were not quite as close to us as this friend always was?
It’s a very sobering, and unsettling thought.
And later that same day it hit me even harder with the second piece of news.
One of the blogs that I follow is that of a very close friend who has spent the majority (I cannot call it “the better part”) of the last 3 years going through various surgeries, recovery times, further surgeries, relapses, etc. She blogs to keep her friends up to date on the physical, emotional and psychological ups and downs that the entire ordeal continues to have for her and her family.
In the middle of all the crap her body has been putting her through, she blogged the other day about visiting a close friend of hers in the hospital in Jerusalem. This is a friend that has cancer, and has been getting sicker. I read the blog, and felt terrible for what my friend has to go through – seeing another friend suffer while her own body is fighting its own sickness. Then it occured to me that she and I know a lot of the same people in Jerusalem, and I wondered if her friend fighting cancer is someone that I know as well.
I texted my friend and she told me who it is. It is a woman that I have known for close to 20 years.
Now – this woman is not somebody that I was ever as close to as I am with the pregnant friend, but she is also more than just a “casual acquaintance”. We have several mutual friends, have often “run” in the same circles, and when I have had Shabbat meals at her home – both before she was married and after she had kids. I knew that she had been sick a few years ago, but not for any particular reason, I never kept up with her blog and I never knew that she had been diagnosed with cancer. Much less know that it has not been a successful battle.
I am still reeling over this. I feel that simply the fact that I had no idea what her condition is reflects on how much I’ve let myself get so wrapped up in my own life – which, while not boring and not necessarily “easy” has been blessed in a lot of ways with “normalcy”.
But that day to day normalcy has made me fall completely out of touch with too many of the people that mean a lot to me - with their joy and their pain, their success, their hopes, dreams, endeavors, fears, plans…
The list goes on and on.
Ironically, over the past few years I think that I have been very good at establishing, nurturing and maintaining friendships that are not so local. I have “met” some wonderful people over the internet, and eventually some of them even in real life, and I love the friendships that I have managed to keep up with when it came to emails, chats, and online communities. I wouldn’t trade these long-distance internet friendships for anything in the world.
Now is the time for me to keep that perspective regarding my friends that have been a part of my “non-virtual” life. It’s time to find a way to be as a good a friend to those that are a bus ride away as I’ve worked at being to those that are visible only on a computer screen. My friends here are worth that every bit as much as the friends that I have only “met” online.
I cannot allow myself to hear the big things – not the good and not the bad – so long after I should anymore.
I can very much relate to this (and I VOW to all my friend Tanya next week because I haven't done so)
ReplyDeleteI used to be the kind of person who attracted many friends and always thought that I had none. In the last few years, I too have very much isolated myself. Honestly, I am the happiest I have ever been, very much in focus with my kids and house and whats going on in life, but sometimes if you focus too much on self and being in, you miss things that are going on outside.
I had a very similar thing occur to me earlier this year and it really put life into perspective. My father in law passed away in January. You know he had never seen my youngest daughter? He had seen my twins when they were almost 2. My husbands side of the family is very distant emotionally from each other. I spent a lot of time internally blaming him for not being there, but in losing him, and sharing with my children stories of how funny he was and how despite really REALLY messing things up when my husband and his siblings were young, that he was really a great guy. I found myself really hurting over the loss and it was unexpected.
So for the first time, this year I feel like I really atoned. I have really looked at how my life is going and what I can change to make it better and more worthwhile. I think that we, like a lot of people, take vacations to places but not to people. We find every excuse in the book to not do something but never reasons TO DO something thats good for us.
I'm trying to make myself available, trying not to be a hermit, and trying to learn from reading Torah and continue on the journey that I started spiritually and the new emotional journey.
And even though I count as one of those "online friends" I'm glad to have run into you again.
Erika
Erika, thanks for sharing this. I'm sorry for the loss of your father-on-law.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I have tried to be careful about is the connection with family - all the more so because I chose to make my life in Israel, when none of my immediate family is here.
While I'm not nearly as close with some family members as I would like to be, we do make every effort to talk about all of our siblings and their kids to our girls so that even if they only see them very rarely, they still have the concept of family in their minds - of people who do love them and want all good things for them.
We are very lucky in that both Sharon and I have good relationships with not only our parents, but always with each other's, so besides the not-often-enough visits in either direction, we do have phone and Skype to keep the girls very connected with their grandparents.
And BTW - I'm also glad that we "re-found one another as online friends. Like I wrote in the blog, I trasure the online friends every bit as much as the offline ones.
I understand, Asher and can completely relate but have to ask--what happens when you try to stay in touch and it's everyone else who drops the ball? We became orthodox--that alone set us apart from the rest of our non-Jewish friends but our friends--mostly single and/or childless started dropping us way, way before that. It started a little after we got married and Dan wanted the occasional night with "just us." After we had kids, we could go out to clubs--I was nursing forever (seriously, until Netanel was nearly 4 and Jonah was nearly 3) so I couldn't just drink whenever I wanted and I couldn't be away from the kids for too long. They stopped coming over--even though the kids went to bed early, slept through the night and didn't wake up with any noise (they have a sound machine--they can't hear anything).
ReplyDeleteI feel like I tried. I emailed, I called, I remembered birthdays. A friend's dad died very suddenly--the kind of friend like your pregnant friend, someone I thought of like a sister--and I didn't find out about it until the day of the funeral--a few hours before Shabbat. A mutual friend had left a voice mail on Dan's phone but he never checks voice mail. Seriously, he never checks ever. No one called me until the funeral. Then this same friend got pregnant (a cart before the horse situation with a guy she'd been dating--I kept asking to meet him and she hemmed and hawed about introducing us to him). They held her bridal shower on Shabbat--I couldn't go, of course. They knew I couldn't go on Shabbat, scheduled it on Shabbat anyway, then acted like I was some horrible person for not going. Anyway, I saw her baby once, after she was born and, despite my continued attempts to stay in touch and keep up with her, I hear nothing from her. Not even a text message "thanks" to "happy birthday" greetings. I'm just tired of trying.
Michelle, I totally hear what you're saying.
ReplyDeleteI think that a lot of us make the mistake in differentiating what is truly our responsibility and where does it fall onto others. For me, it's already a full-time job (and as I wrote in the blog, not one that I am always successful) in making sure that I'm OK - that I'm doing what it is that I should be doing. Does it really make sense for to worry about other people doing what they should be doing?
Even more so - perhaps by letting me go, they actually are doing what they feel is right for them to do. I may not understand their reasons, and I sure as hell don't have to like it, but still - who's to say?
When it comes to the whole issue of you becoming more religiously observant, perhaps the real test of the true friends is to see which of them are able to accept you as you are, and to respect the path that you and Dan have chosen for yourselves and for your family. If they aren’t comfortable with that, or of they are unwilling to figure out a way to continue being in your lives – within the new framework that you have, then perhaps they weren’t as good friends as you had originally thought (and hoped).
It sore of reminds me of the old adage “If you lend a friend $20, then never see him again, then it was worth it”.
Of course, that doesn’t make the sense of loss any easier, less painful or less hurtful. But when you put in so much energy to maintaining friendships and the effort isn’t reciprocated, then it’s not necessarily a reflection on you and Dan, but rather on the other people.
Asher absolutely has it. Do what you should do in keeping in touch, but know when its time to move on. I had this problem too. My husband and I were married (well, TOGETHER) very young, and not because we were pregnant or anything, just fell in love. Many of my friends stopped talking to me because they assumed that I had gotten pregnant and done something (like that would ever even be an option for me) I had to let them go. We didn't have many friends for a very long time. But at the end of this tunnel, I have found myself to be incredibly independent, the kind of mom people come to for advice and we have a great number of family friends (people in our neighborhood who also have children) who have really been a blessing for us. I believe that things naturally balance toward good if you let them. So if people don't stay in touch, don't make them, go and find someone who fills you more with what you need in life.
ReplyDelete