An envelope arrived in the mail the other day – just before I left on my business trip. It had a return address indicating it was mailed from my hometown. I anxiously ripped it open. Funny but I still get excited regarding news about my hometown even though I haven’t lived there in 30 years. I guess for my generation that connection runs deep. I am sad and relieved that my children will never have that connection. I opened it to find an obituary. On top of the obituary was a handwritten note. It was from a friend of my parents. She was a neighbor of ours and had been their friend since I was about five years old. My siblings and I had grown up with her three sons. I always think of her with such fondness. Just seeing the note from her brings back good memories of spending time with her family.
“Thought you might be interested in this. I know you babysat for her for many years,” she said in the note. I knew from my Mother that my friend had been battling cancer for a number of years. It had been in remission for a quite a while but apparently it had recently returned with a vengeance. She was only 61 years old. We had a deep connection when I was in high school. After I moved away, I would visit her when I came home to visit my parents. She always seemed glad to see me. But our visits had definitely tapered off over the years. I would contact her but she rarely had the time to see me. I was hurt that she didn’t want to get together. She had been someone I could confide in as a teenager and young adult. We seemed to understand each other even though we were from totally different worlds. Those talks helped me escape the provincial attitudes of the city in which I grew up.
Why didn’t we maintain that connection? I wanted to stay connected. Do friendships have limited life spans? Do I just care more about other people than they care about me? Do I value friendships more than other people do? Am I wrong or weird for feeling that way? Am I the only one who feels so intensely lonely in 21st century America? These aren’t new feelings for me. I have felt lonely and alienated since I was a child.
I often wonder if our ability to connect is damaged early on in our life whether we can ever completely heal from that injury. I was driven by fear to seek and also to run away from relationships. Fear has been my constant companion since childhood. Anxiety may be a more accurate term but for me the feeling is definitely one of fear. When I was young I would sabotage close friendships when I revealed too much of myself to the other person. Was I was afraid they would reject me so I rushed to do it first?
Q: How would you rate your ability to connect - form deep and lasting connections- to "friends." If you want deeper connections what do you think is interfering with your ability to do that?
