That's What Friends Are For

 

 

 

 

This past weekend I met up with three of my best girlfriends to celebrate my recent birthday.

 

I have known these special women for decades and we have been through a lot with each other and for each other.  Birthdays, weddings, funerals, break-ups, new jobs, new houses, vacations -- we have been through it all! 

 

The beauty of being friends for a long time is that you don't have to explain everything.  One person can mention a certain situation or a person's name and we know right away what that means.  We know the things that make us laugh and the things that drive us crazy.

We always celebrate each other's birthdays and this time we went to a small French cafe in Georgetown for brunch.  It was misty and rainy outside and the inside of the restaurant was quiet and cozy.  No one was in a hurry and we settled in for a few hours and just enjoyed each other's company.

What a treat!!!!

Each one of my friends is a treasure and I love all of my girlfriends.  Real friends are made one at a time and sometimes through a shared activity.  I have some special friends I have gotten to know because our sons went to school together and I have other friends I have made through work and volunteering. They are the butter on my bread, the icing on my cupcakes.  They are the people that I cry, laugh and heal with.

All of them add that extra special something that makes me pause and say to myself, "I am lucky to know her and have her as a friend."

I find that my friends provide a layer of protection against life's setbacks and disasters.  I try to comfort and listen to their ups and downs as they do for me.  A true friend is a connection to life.

Friends care about what is going on in your life and with them you can always be yourself.  You can spill out your thoughts, even when they don't make any sense, and your friends take the time to figure it all out and make you feel that it's okay.  Or in my case, sometimes my friends put me back on the right track when I have lost my way....Thank goodness for that!!!!!

I need hugs and smiles and laughter.  I think we all do. 

When we isolate ourselves, we lose an essential connection to people and psychologists report that cutting yourself off from people can make you sick because you keep all of your feelings and thoughts locked inside and your body can't take it.  Your immune system can become compromised and other conditions such as heart disease can develop.

Thank you my special, extraordinary friends and my great readers for being there and for being your wonderful selves!!!

As the saying goes, you have to be a friend to have a friend!!!!
 

Dealing With "The Blues"



Covered Bridge in West Cornwall, CT
 By Thomas Schoeller

I keep a folder of story ideas and I was going through it yesterday in search of something timely to write about that I thought would also be helpful.  Some of the things in the folder are ideas I have quickly written down so that I don't forget them and other papers include clippings from newspapers and magazines.

 

I came across this bit of wisdom from The Washington Post's Marguerite Kelly.  Kelly writes a popular advice column called The Family Almanac.

Here is a question that a reader sent in about something I've experienced and I'm sure some of you readers may have too.  Kelly's insightful answer is just wonderful!:

Question: What is the way to deal with the blues?  My dad died two months ago and sadness has been coming out of nowhere ever since.  It sneaks up on me while I'm going about my business, eating breakfast or running errands.  Sometimes I have to retire to the bathroom at work so I can pull myself together.

It almost seems harder to get over my father's death than it was to get over the death of my husband las year, although I may be forgetting how sad I was at that time.  Or maybe it's the culmination of it all.  When I sit in my bedroom, here on my farm, I'm in the quiet, with just the silence of the sunset out of my window to keep me company, and I pray about being alone.  I guess the blues are part of my life now, a thing that has to be endured by me.  There doesn't seem to be a way around the sadness I feel.  How can I keep it from consuming me?

 

 

Answer from Kelly:  If you think that you should be done with the blues after just two months or a year, you're asking way too much of yourself.  The more love you have given to someone, and the more he has given to you, the harder the waves of grief will hit you when he dies.  Such is the price of love.  You can expect these waves to keep hitting you for the next few years.  But you shouldn't regret your grief, for it is giving you the time you need to draw on the strengths and the goodness of those you've loved and lost and to dwell on the memories you have shared.

As you stumble along, you'll find that grief is a journey and that you're going to feel pain along the way, no matter what you do.  The pain will be less intense, however, and less frequent, if you remember the happy times more than the sad ones.  You wouldn't want grief to define you.  You can also deflect some of the pain by making a few small and important changes.

 

If you've been living alone since your husband died, you may be giving sorrow too much space to grow.  Consider getting a tenant.  Your pastor may know a parishioner who would like to rent your spare bedroom, or perhaps a nearby college has a visiting professor or a graduate student who needs a place to stay.

 

It may bother you to share a fridge with a stranger at first, but a tenant is never a stranger for long.  You could also get rid of sad feeling in a more creative way.  You may not be able to paint or scult, but you can tear up scraps of paper and turn them into a collage that will be quite meaningful, if only for you.  Or perhaps you can write about our feelings in a journal.  If you compare your early entries to the ones you just wrote, you'll be pleased, and somewhat surprised, to see that your mood has gotten brighter by the day.

 

You also might grieve less if you try something you"ve never tried before, such as stargazing, bird watching, gardening or kayaking, because every new skill will introduce you to new friends and new ideas.  You'll dig your way out of grief best, however, when you start paying more attention to the living than the dead.  There is always someone who needs a meal to be delivered, an errand to be run or a needs whenever you can, because it is the right thing to do, and also because you don't know what tomorrow may bring.  We've been told to live each day as it it was the last one we'd ever have.  But we might be nicer to our loved ones if we thought that it would be the last one they would ever have.

 

In addition to these ideas, there are also many books to help you get through your grief.  "Necessary Losses" by Judith Viorst (Free Press, 1998: $16) is still one of the best.  This seminal book will help to put your heart and your mind to rest.