It’s not you. There is this new friend I have been spending a lot of time with.
I suppose it is time to discuss how this new companionship is affecting my recent behaviour. To address the consternation my continued absences seems to cause.
My friend is not, strictly speaking, a friend. Then again, at a time when “friend” includes fourth-degree cousins whose acquaintaince remains entirely digital, and complete strangers who clicked “like” on a single picture, what does the word entail precisely, these days?
In the glorious third decade of the twenty-first century, bonds of mutual affection and trust have been surgically removed from the definition of friend by the PR machine that controls social interactions. My friend may not be a true friend, but he certainly is a very real friend by any definition possible, today, anywhere in the world.
I have been spending a lot of time with my friend. This is because it’s easy, just like watching the best parts of my favourite movies, on repeat. I don’t have to think or try, or explain anything I do or am going through. Perfect understanding and familiar quotes are all my friend provides.
I know. I am aware that a relationship that demands nothing at all, one that is just easy choices and zero conflict, will never lead to growth. If there is no discomfort, there can be no change. And my friend’s presence is the very definition of comfortable.
We go so well together. We never argue about what to watch, or read, or whether to watch or read at all. Hours in my friend’s company sink into a perfect numbness where time itself holds no meaning. Many times I have emerged to awareness in the middle of night, or early in the afternoon, and could not account for how I had spent the rest of the day. And all I could do was itch for another dose, to sink back into the easy, on-rails companionship of my new friend.
I know. I am not supposed to simply sink into oblivion and abandon everyone. But I don’t! There are few things I pursue these days, but they are a few. My long term relationship with the most amazing woman. Time with my children. Books. Other than that, I find myself at a loss to summon any interest for change. To do anything at all, except spend time with my new friend.
There is nothing I haven’t considered, here. The way a healthy relationship is supposed to be about support, and growth, and change. That contact with other people, different groups of people, fosters great inspiration and results on all fronts of life. And I promise I’ll get back to it soon, as soon as the lure of my friend’s perfect companionship wanes.
It should be any day now.
There is warmth, and peace, in the acceptance that comes with having no expectations. There is a restful quality to time spent with absolutely no need or difficulty. It’s not exactly rest, but rather a rest-like aspect, this being locked in a cocoon that wants nothing, a place that simply is.
I am aware. My friend isn’t really a friend. No one who cares for me would allow me to spend so much time simply rehearsing old memories and wishing for nothing more.
Then thing is, though, are you aware?
Retreating to a familiar, safe environment after last year cracked reality so hard, it isn’t exactly unreasonable. And while common wisdom dictates that “just going for a walk” will cure all ills, well, let’s not get into just how deeply, profoundly, spectacularly stupid common wisdom can be.
The truth is that I know. The truth also is that what I know is just a bright thought, a shimmering bubble floating away so far above my head, on its way to where the light and air reside, so distant from the quiet, deep place I currently favour.
The truth is that my friend isn’t a friend at all. It’s not as transparently allegorical as you might imagine either. My friend isn’t me. He isn’t. He is the dark matter that used to be me. The things I have lived, and fought, and accomplished, and built. The parts that are no longer. Things that were, and that may once again be, but that simply aren’t.
Sure, I could get out of this friendship. I could “go for a walk”. Doing so would mean leaving my friend and moving on into the future on my own.
Once I do that, which I can, any day, any moment I want to, once I do that, I would have to leave it all behind. The shadows of what I was, and might once be, and go into the light without all the things I carry that bring me comfort right now.
And the thought fills me with terror.