2003-09-22

 

An open letter to my friend.
Hello, friend.
Did you know that not a single day goes by that I don't think about you a dozen times? Not one. I constantly think, "Oh, my friend would love that." Or hate it. Or be confused by it. I speculate on your opinions.
If it seems that I don't have much to tell about what's going on with me these days, there's a good reason. There's really not much to tell. Sometimes I worry that because your life is so difficult and stressful right now, you won't want to talk to me. Things are pretty darn good for me, and I would hate for you to resent it. I'm hesitant to tell you about how easy (certainly by comparison) I have it. It sounds like gloating, and besides which, it's boring. Who wants to hear that crap?
I know -- I KNOW -- that I would be nothing without you. Without your support for so many years. Literally nothing -- either dead by my own hand, or trapped by bad decisions and circumstances that you helped me escape. Nothing.
Sometimes when I try to help, I know you resist from pride. You have so much pride, you know, but not so much that I think it makes you difficult.
Well, maybe sometimes.
But it's not a vice-like pride. It's a determined pride. Focused determination. You're determined to make your own way, your own life, to not be dependent upon anyone else. It's admirable, especially considering that your mother only really encouraged you to be dependent upon relationships. Be a wife. Don't bother going to college. Find some nice guy to take care of you. It might have been nice, but not very realistic, I think. And you don't expect that anymore. The only one who can make you happy is you, my friend, and I think that you might be one of the only people in your life that understands that. Your family doesn't. I think that your parents must envy you, you know. You're the strong one. The one who controls her own life. It's something that they have never experienced, that sense of owning themselves and their futures.
Now that I think about it, most people never get that sense of owning their own destiny. They grow up hearing about how God made Man with Free Will, never to understand that the exercise of Free Will is by rights theirs. We are rare, you and I, my friend.
But back to me trying to help... I understand that you don't want to accept it. I know you'd never ask for it unless you were desperate. But you must try to understand that I owe you a debt, my friend, and there's no way that I can ever repay it. All of these gestures, those past and those to come, are only tokens. You're not the only one to whom I owe a debt, but all you have given me by far outweighs everyone else. I am who I am today in no small part because of you. And I like me. I like me a lot, most days. How magical that is, don't you agree? To go from curled up in a corner to feeling like I have value.
The child may be the father of the man, but the child's friends play no small part, either. Take some credit.
I want you to be happy. I want you to have everything. But for the moment, I just want you to know that I stand behind your decisions and choices. That I'll try to point out any mines that I see in your path, but that you know where they are better than I do. That you always have a home with me, no matter how long you need it. It's always there -- even though "there" isn't as convenient as it used to be.
Be strong. I love you.

~~b

posted by bethanye 12:25:00 PM