Two four leaf clovers!
I would like to take some time to practice some gratitude today. I have a lot of things to be thankful for in life and an attitude of gratitude, is something that helps me keep from being sad. It is strange how it almost works like a healing salve over the emotional parts that hurt. Some boo boos take more salve than others, so I guess at times my need for gratefulness fluctuates.
Let's start with my dear friend.I've known her since the end of 2020? It was close to when I had seriously overwhelmed my gf with my emotionality and high needs after having moved away. I overwhelmed her to the point of her needing space and room away from talking to me at all. It was one of the hardest times in my life, not because omg I had something so mean done to me, but it was the beginning of me accepting that I could have things that I needed to work on about myself. I definitely did have work to do. I finally was sitting with it and I understood that I did in fact have limitations and would often time read over wheat I had said with my gf and feel embarassed and ashamed for my lack of emotional control and cruelty I could find in my voice.
This is the stage for when I met her, let's call her Belle. I was on a mental health discord server. I met quite a few people around that time trying to find my own purpose in helping other's with the same quest. Souls aching and in desperate need to be heard. There had to be someone among all of the wounded hearts here that was like me that just wanted to be heard, validated and accepted. That was my theory at the time I think going into it deep down. I helped people in my down time and earned the title mental health aide on that server. I was given the task of talking to people that were exceptionally overwhelmed with their life. Suicidal people or those on the edge of a relapse that could be the former if handled poorly.
She was in a support chat that was intended for those in crisis. The other two available aides had an attitude as if they already knew her story and were numb to it, and had difficulty being emotionally present with her. That hurt my heart to hear the lack of compassion and empathy and decided that they just must not have the space and resources to do the job they took on here. I entered the chat and invited her to a private conversation. We had a short playful banter before getting to the nuts and bolts of her wanting to unalive herself. She detailed atrocities she endured. I do not use the word lightly, she went through tragedies that would bring most grown men to their knees begging the world for just a little mercy. It was easy to read that she yearned for a diminutive tone in a way. Support was such a foreign thing to her from what I could understand so I did my best to listen.
As it happens when someone shares their life, pain and experiences with you, I found myself sharing my own life experiences and pain. She was an amazing listener and I would later realize through her own words, that she was mirroring the support that I had brought to her. That shook me to my core and suddenly I could see all the little ways that she was behaving were little mirrors that she made. Prisms perhaps refracted through her personality but the light that was shining through and helping me see what I needed to see was in fact coming from me. We continued to stay in touch...sometimes dropping off the map for a few months at a time. But occasionally exchanging a few days of conversation before settling back into silence.
It was the kind of wonderful friend that was not going to abandon you just because you hadn't heard from them in a while, but would be there and excited that you still were alive and there to talk. It was the exact rock I needed through the storms my life continued to endure. It started as this small life raft of a rock jutting up from the sea floor in a storm, and has continued to grow through careful nurturing, love, respect and communication into an island that I can find sanctuary in.
Through every heart break that I have endured, through all of the tears cried about pain others have caused me, through all of the nights after nights of crying into the small hours of the morning just praying for one person to be there...it was right there she has been every time. More reliable than my sense of self, she reminds me regularly who I am by offering that beautiful mirror. I was so low. So damn low through the last few years and she kept seeing my waving that was drowning and pulling me back out of the water and gently remind me, " boi, don't swim in those waters, it isn't good for you...but I won't give up on you while I watch you learn what you need to"
I wish this world could normalize romanticizing friendships. Not because you want to escalate them into intimacy of sexuality but because sometimes significance and loyalty transcends typical human bonds. I like acknowledging the significance of the impact she has had on me because this is another thread in the tapestry of my experience, and unlike many threads... it continues to weave in and out of the picture, appearing through lines in the picture as bright little blots of color but now is a regular recurring part of the pattern that is my life.
I don't ever want to imagine a time I don't know her. I think in some really weird way I haven't known before she has superseded the significance of my future romantic relationships and may in fact help me from feeling so vulnerable to the offering of breadcrumbs of attention from potential suitors and hold out for true love because I value myself through her eyes in a way I didn't know before.
She wrote a poem that still shakes me every time I read it. I'll share a brief excerpt until I have the consent to share it all
as i am begs me to question
what are you
if you are not like the rest
whatever it is that you are
i want to be like you
-Belle
I am thankful for having a truly amazing friend, I'm humbled to learn in life someone could admire me and inspire me as she does.
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