It is rather quaint these days to be blogging. Everyone, it seems, has the attention span of a hamster, thanks to Twitter. I refuse to go on Twitter. I cannot do anything in 145 characters or less. I can't even tell the time in 145 characters or less. (right now it is exactly five, fifty-six in the afternoon, Pacific daylight savings time) Okay, I lied. I did that in just eight-six characters. I have to fill space with words. It's fun. It's also pretentious. I don't care. It's still fun...if you don't have to read it, anyway.
This is the last of my Loyalties series. It is a cool Sunday afternoon of Thanksgiving weekend. The sun is shining. I treated myself to a long walk that took me for around seven miles in some nice neighbourhoods with spectacular views and tonnes of real estate signs in Chinese and concluded in a pleasant coffee shop where I am working on Scarlet Macaw number six, of a series of seven, in my sketchbook.
I am reflecting today on the general sense of isolation and friendlessness that I often feel around Thanksgiving and Christmas, when my friends basically abandon me because I don't fit in with their holiday plans. The fact of the matter is very simple. I have no friends. I have acquaintances and people I go for coffee with. They are not real friends and I have to accept this. I am old now, or at least older. I fit a particularly vulnerable demographic: old, low-income single male. We are the most likely to get sick and die prematurely. Even if we do everything necessary to take care of our health the lack of being loved or cared for still affects our immune systems and this makes it less likely for us to heal and more prone to dying early. We generally have no surviving or interested family and, being one of the least attractive categories on any level, the least likely to be befriended by anyone who doesn't have an ulterior motive.
Those of us who do well usually try to adapt to our circumstances and do our best to stay in touch with others while looking after ourselves. We also tend to comfort ourselves with illusions of friendship, until the holidays and we're suddenly alone. Even then, I often try to see if there is at least one person around to have coffee with or share a meal. Sometimes yes, often no. But I am never going to be considered a priority. I have no right to this kind of expectation.
I don't think it's a matter of writing everyone else off who seem to express interest in me. Rather it's a matter of learning to be realistic. If I go on believing that I have no friends, then two good things can happen to me: holidays won't feel excruciatingly lonely. It's a bit easier on Christmas because then I work and taking care of others helps take my mind off of myself. It doesn't take away the pain but it does help dull it a little. Having no friends, no one is obligated to share the occasion with me. And, when my acquaintances behave like friends it can be a pleasant surprise, just as long as I don't let this lull me into believing that they are actually friends.
I am writing this because I have not been invited anywhere for Christmas in almost ten years. nowhere for Thanksgiving in over a decade. People who know me know that I'm alone with few resources and not a lot of people in my life. If by this time I haven't learned that I have no friends then I must be incredibly stupid because no real friend would allow someone to suffer like this year after year.
I am not going to let this become an excuse to prevent me from reaching out to others in friendship. I am, by nature, a friend to people, and to not be this is to stop the flow of God's love in me and would become for me a kind of spiritual suicide. Similarly, to perceive others as friends would be to place on them a sense of obligation and this can easily become a prison for them, unless they really were my friends.
As painful as it often is, I am going to do my best to let go of illusions of friendship with anyone and everyone I know. I will embrace the solitude that is the present moment, and the present moment in which God dwells will embrace me. It will not be the same as having secure people in my life whom I can trust, but it's better than nothing.
And since pain is part of love, I will still go on loving.
To anyone reading this who thinks of themselves as my friend I ask that you not take what I have just written personally, but to understand that somehow I have to cope and be able to live with this cold gnawing isolation that never seems to leave me. Please be patient with me. Thank you.
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