“Yeah, at surface level what’s happened between you guys seems weird or even impossible, but if you think of it, it’s actually quite a universal experience: friends fall for each other, because they like each other as persons”. Ron’s words yesterday evening brought me some respite, some lightness, almost a sense of things being “smoothedContinue reading ““Friends fall for each other””
Tag Archives: friendship
A moral question
“Where were you when your father needed you?” is something my mother has asked me full of venom almost every time we have talked since my father’s death two & a half years ago — which is one of the reasons why the times we talk are so few and far between. Where was myContinue reading “A moral question”
Hard week
This is a hard week. On the one hand, there’s the realistic, almost chemical, fact of coming down after 2-3 weeks of almost steady high, nonstop go-go-go — hence the ensuing physical tiredness and also a sense of emptiness. But what makes this particular “low after the high” so hard is that it’s Thanksgiving week. Continue reading “Hard week”
Trust: the most fundamental form of love
We were swinging freely almost twenty meters above the ground. The 9-mm climbing rope went through the two rappel rings at the top, 100 feet up from the ground, a “free-hanging rappel”, i.e. a lowering technique where there are no walls around or adjacent to you: you’re lowering from what is basically a hole inContinue reading “Trust: the most fundamental form of love”
Desperate urgency & holding the line
I’ve been trying to understand my unwillingness to keep up a friendship with the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up unless he also takes concrete steps to initiate our meetings/plans. Why am I drawing such a hard line with him that I don’t necessarily draw with other friends? After all, isn’t friendshipContinue reading “Desperate urgency & holding the line”
“The people I love the best”
Yesterday evening I started my first poetry class and the instructor shared a poem by Marge Piercy, To be of use. To me this felt like a concrete image of love, of friendship, as I imagine it, as I experience it. This is the way I hope to give and receive love and friendship —Continue reading ““The people I love the best””
Choosing my personal safety: an act of self-care
I’m feeling frustrated. Even sad and somewhat angry. Yet what I did yesterday evening was a practical, firm act of self-care and a concrete instance of putting one of my New Year’s resolutions into practice, i.e. “not pursuing unavailable relationships/situations”. The plans for yesterday evening were that I was going to meet one of myContinue reading “Choosing my personal safety: an act of self-care”
The gift of friendship
A few days ago, one of my closets friends here in Colorado said to me that I “have a gift for friendship”. That’s one of the highest compliments I could be given, one of the loveliest things I could be told. And I’m not sure I deserve such a compliment. More simply, I would sayContinue reading “The gift of friendship”