Friends, Friendships, & Loss:

It was a horrid shouting match with my closest friend. As she vented her anger, I saw fear, a terrified little girl, charged with the same panic the little boy inside me was experiencing—that we had both lost our dearest friend.

Fortunately, our anger waned, our rational minds reengaged, &, as we talked it out, we realized that neither of us had meant any harm but had felt misunderstood. With heartfelt apologies, we reaffirmed that we truly cared about one another & wanted only the best for each other.

How easy it is to misunderstand ourselves, one’s own motives, feelings, desires. How much easier it is to misconstrue the motives, feelings, & desires of another with even a slightly different view or contrasting values.

But talking is the answer. Talking is always the answer. It leads to understanding, which leads to acceptance, & acceptance, with the proper care, can lead to love. I’m talking of the love of a close friend.

I teach others how to communicate more effectively, how to accept another despite the differences that make us all unique, how to tolerate others’ eccentricities, how to overlook the negative traits we all have in abundance, & how to resolve conflicts when they arise. I teach creative problem solving & help people clarify their values so they can find more meaning in their lives. I’m even an exceptionally effective mediator when others let me get in between them to help iron out the wrinkles & undesired creases in their relationships.

But I’m my own worst client. When I’m in the thick of an unsettling dispute of my own where I feel I have been wronged, when emotion locks out my rational mind, I’m whacko!

It’s not easy in our mobile, superficial, self-centered society to develop deep & lasting friendships, yet dangerously simple to destroy what we’ve built. The rage-filled encounter described above made me reconsider & reevaluate much in my life, & it required a lot of analysis to milk its full worth.

I believe that most things that happen to us have value, that we can learn from them, that something worthwhile can always be extracted from even the most devastating situations. It’s not easy, especially alone. This is why, following an especially emotionally wrenching encounter, we find ourselves calling a friend or writing a note to someone whom we know will listen & understand.

I turn to my writing as one means of such reevaluation & release, & some friendships have appeared out of the stream of readers. The more friends that one has to whom one can turn in such crises, the easier it is to sail the stormiest seas without drowning in the swells.

A definition of friend I use in assessing my friendships is a friend is someone who, when you've made an ass of yourself, does not believe that you've done a permanent job. Yes, friendships are a costly investment, but the return is tenfold squared.

“Hell is in your memories. The cauldron of remorse for what you did not dare to do is worse than any pain from wrong effects.” ~ David Seabury

Recently I’ve been grieving several losses: of 2 best friends I had at different times in my youth & that of a favorite nephew who has been my best friend for several decades. Connections with the first 2 were broken by enormous distances which were difficult & too costly to overcome 50 years ago when the technology was slow & expensive. Now, all of them, as well as the woman of my dreams, are mere memories. Geography kept us apart for most of our lives. I love maps but curse the distances they represent.

Looking back at all the losses, I wish I'd done more assessing much earlier about becoming separated by geography & time as well as doing something about it to prevent the disconnections, or to reconnect when there was still enough time. The clock ticked on & the calendar kept flipping to a new page while I stood by & did too little. Now? Too late.

David Seabury, an American psychologist & popular writer of 15 books nearly a century ago, was right. That cauldron of remorse whipping around in my soul with all the memories of the things I didn’t do or kept putting off while waiting for something rather than taking the initiative to do them is sheer hell. It’s the hell of knowing that I can never turn the clock back & that those opportunities have passed—forever!

That ticking clock becomes a time bomb reminding me, nudging me, kicking me in the butt to get going & doing the other things that keep peering temptingly from various corners of my consciousness, crying for attention, desperately drawing me into action so that I would not add more remorse to that swirling cauldron. Meanwhile, the list of memories of the adventures I did dare to take entices me to add another item—or 2—or....

©Vytas Stoskus, 2022 www.stoskus.net

[note to editors: If another or more photos would be more effective, I have several readily available.]