September 24, 2014--New Friends

I've envied friends who are so much better than I at remaining close to people they know from college and even childhood.

I have felt there is something missing within me because I have maintained so few friendships from those times. How could I, I chastise myself, have seemingly intense, meaningful  relationships that span years and even decades and then distance myself to the point that they becoming attenuated and then ultimately end.

I rationalize--

At first we had so much in common but then life intervened: they moved, I moved--distance did not make our hearts fonder; they married people with whom I was not compatible, I did a version of the same thing; they had children, I never did; they developed extravagant tastes, I didn't; they drifted to the political right, I became more progressive; they found God, I was unable to.

So it was understandable, I justified to myself, that I would move on from generation to generation of friends. Different kinds of friends for different stages of life, I would say to myself. But it always sounded hollow.

And, I confess, I pulled back from some friends who I prefer to keep frozen in time.

Yeas ago I worked closely with a colleague, Flash was his street name, who at about 40 began to change in ways that upset and distanced me, including becoming attracted to orthodox Judaism and conservative Republican politics.

I wanted to remember him as the audacious and activist "Flash" and did not want to follow along his evolving journey to places I didn't understand or respect and, after that, into old age. Another issue.

So to me, though he is no longer an active friend, I will remember and cherish him as always youthful, unshaven, with shoulder-length hair, over-size lumberjack shirt, and battered construction boots, tirelessly working all day every day to help bring about social justice.

"Yes," a current friend says, "as you suspect about yourself, there is something missing within you; but since that may be true for me as well, I suppose this making and letting go of friends across a lifetime helps make us compatible. It's just who you are. Who I am as well."

But still I give myself grief about this since this also sounds like more rationalizing.

"Look," my friend presses on, "we met only, what, three, four years ago and don't you consider me a friend? A close friend? As close as I consider you?"

"Indeed," I say. "A friend, yes, and a very close one. What do you make of that? How could that possibly be? At this age?" I am genuinely perplexed.

"We enjoy each other. We need each other," he added almost in a whisper as if he didn't want me to hear. "And since we have experienced many similar things, including some sad and some tragic, and have gravitated to a range of common understandings, we have found many ways to enjoy each other's company and have come to care deeply about each other. Even this quickly. Limitations and imperfections aside, we are two reasonably fully-formed people. And that helps."

While taking this in, while I ruminated, he added, "Part of it is at this time of life many things are behind us which, if present, could, do get in the way of true and deep friendships."

"Like what?"

"Ambition, for one. And how we are now less about gathering and accumulating, engage in less pretending, have less fire in the belly, are less competitive, share aches and pains and worse, experience diminished hormone flow, less--"

"I get your point, and it's a good one" I said, cutting him off with a laugh. I was not wanting to get that intimate. But what he said made sense. And, if true, helped me understand why later in life it is possible to make new friends and gather them close. Perhaps as important--friendships that may last for the rest of our attenuated lifetimes.

I have been thinking about the nature of my experiences with friends, especially reflecting on some that are recent but powerful, since one of them, Steve Gerson (Dr. Stephen Gerson), died, to me, unexpectedly on Sunday. Yesterday was his funeral.

How could it be that since Sunday morning he has not been out of my thoughts?

He was anything but a lifelong friend--perhaps we saw each other during two, three years twenty times--and yet I despair that we will not have more time together. It is not just because, in spite of being chronically ill, he was so inspirationally full of life and interests and joy and work and memories and stories and insights and fun and optimism that I will miss him, but because there was an instantaneous intimacy that sparked between us and connected us deeper than understanding, seemingly for life. An anticipated much longer life, thwarted now, which also revealed that the magic potential of friendship does not end with age and it can come in stages.

Sad, I'll take what I got. It was a gift.