friend seeking (local friend(s))

Here is the problem when you like to live in different places around the world and make friends with people from different places around the world: inevitbly you end up with a very impressive friend map on facebook, but not much else in the meantime.

I'm waiting/actively searching for my next adventure. In the meantime, I'm back in my hometown. Yee-haw.

Sure this had a certain novelty when I first arrived, but after a while you realize that nothing much has changed, including your desire not to settle down there. So I'm looking for meaningful work that doesn't make me want to go home each night and drink copious amounts of alcohol to deal with the banality of my current state of existence.

However, while worrying over all of my resume catagories, I realized I should be sending out these resumes in hopes of acquiring friends. My work skills are the same things I'm sending out, hoping to find in friends: adventure, language, dependiblity, good sense of humor...

My local friend group is dwindling. Some left for different parts of the country, some for different parts of the world. At one point I was one of those people who moved far away and accumulated new shiny foreign friends. And, alas, now I'm back and wondering when the new new friendships are going to start?

Out of sheer curiousity, I even went to craigslist and did a quick perusal of women seeking platonic friendships. I glanced at the first three. All were girls within my age group and all sounded cool and apologetic for searching for friends on craigslist. However, even though I applaud them for their courage (or desperation) to finally post a call for friends on craiglist, I couldn't quite bring myself to respond for a friend date.

I'm a believer in things happening for a reason. I've made some good long distance friendships based
off of brief, sparkling moments when you bump into a stranger and you just know: This person and I make a wonderful pair.  And there's so little time together, you jump right to the good stuff: similiar interests, fascinating stories, mini-adventures, singular pictures that bespeak of a life-bonding inside-joke.

And maybe that's what makes the friendship so great. The equivalent of a romantic fling, these friendship flings leave only time for the good stuff. Then, when we have to part ways we're left with great memories, maybe a few pictures to load onto social media, and only fond things to say of the other person.

These friendship flings, when properly nurtured (texting an inside joke every month or so, a bday wall post, a youtube video referal), provide you with couches to stay on whenever you might be visiting that part of the country/world.

But, what, I ask you, are we left with in the meantime?

I'm a pro at these long distance friendships, I could practically write a book of rules on these friendship flings. But how in God's name does someone in their (gulp) mid-twenties, make long lasting, local friends, now adays?

Maybe that only happens when you finally grow up and decide to settle somewhere and stay local.

Oh sure, I've got my best friends from elementary school and college, a few of them in the local vicinity. They'll always be there for me. I can tell them the most embarrassing stories and they'll relate with their different but still embarrassing tales. But other than that, our circles of interest are fading away.

Every couple of years, it seems that I can date someone and for a brief period of time (3-9 months) we have the perfect social life. We amass a solid, unmovable group of friends, much like what you see on programs such as Friends and How I Met Your Mother, and everyone's jealous of how tight we all are, how cool our parties seem to be, how desirable our one-on-one coffee dates go. And then, like clockwork, we slowly begin to dissassemble. Joe and Alice break up,  Peter decides to start his life over in Portland, etc. etc. In fact, it's cruel really.  What I realize we all gelled together over in the first place is the very thing that will tear us apart : we come together over our mutual desire to get out of this town, to try bigger and better things in the great unknown elsewhere, and slowly, we do just that.

And again, I tell you, I'm back to square one.

So this Christmas season, instead of going to Ugly Sweater parties, or having to buy a million gifts for my million friends, I'm sending a million post cards off to different corners of the world, praising past glory days and pledging to see them in-person again.... all the while nursing that cynical realization that I probably won't see them again in this life when I need them the most. They'll only appear in the most casual of happenstances, like a reward for previous good mental health.

I probably won't use those fancy friendship finder websites... at least not yet. I'm still the let-lightening-strike sort of romantic, especially when it comes to friendships. I'm sure the right people will wander into my life just as surely as they have in the past and we'll have some good times. In the meantime, I'll value those friends I've been fortunate to make over the years and keep the correspondence flowing. Hopefully someday I'll settle down and not have to be content with stale acquaintances, but develop mutual interest pools of well-meaning friends.

My home in the storm

There’s a storm brewing outside my house, but I’m sitting comfortably cozy on the couch by a warm fire. Leaves are being ripped off the trees, tossed sharply at the windows. The sky is grayish and brown, and a smattering of rain drops fall against the pane. I check the time and know I only have an hour before I have to get dressed and go out to meet with friends.

But I am thankful to be inside this big old ranch house right now, its thick wood and plaster walls surrounding me, the comfort of animals gathered around me.  

The three dogs are lying as close to the wood stove and they can possibly get without singing their fur. These dogs are family pets, and, at 12 years old, are getting a little more feeble and senile in their age.  They love their warmth and their comfort.  As the storm worsens outside, Happy whines anxiously. He moves from me to the window and back again, sitting straight back and glancing at me from the corner of his eye. He needs constant reassurance that it’s okay to relax. 

The other dogs are not nearly as bothered.  The windows creak against the gale and I can feel little breezes rushing through some invisible cracks.

Daisy flicks her eyes up at me whenever I shift in my seat, but her expression stays trusting from where she rests on the carpet.  As long as she has her human companionship, she’s content.

Mable, infamous now for her failing hearing, lifts her head at the most recent onslaught of debris against the glass. It’s made the house rattle.   She grumbles audibly before settling her head back on the floor. No storm will fully disturb her from her slumber.  So long as she has warmth and comfort, she’s determined not to leave it. 

I think about our other animals outside. The one old arthritic sheep, a remnant of a childhood past, sits stolidly at the top of the hill where she can observe everything.  No storm will move her; no promise of hay in the barn can keep her from her watch. The three barn cats, fluffy and thick in their growing winter coats, are probably nestled somewhere in their own shelter outside. 

Although I know they’re all safe, on a night like this I wish I could herd them all inside and around the fire where we could all be safe and dry together. 

When I was little, I would imagine that being inside this great big old ranch house was like being at sea. The house was a giant wooden ship getting tossed about by the waves but I was always safe inside it.

Now, that old thought makes me thankful to be where I am, cozy and content. I’m surrounded by the artifacts of my family from over a decade of living in this house. Their touch is everywhere: a quilt sewn by my mom, logs hewn by my dad, scribblings on pieces of paper by my niece, well-worn books resting in shelves that all of us have leafed through over the years.

When I was little I used to hope for big snowstorms that would lock my family inside the house. We would always have warmth, food, books to read and games to play. It felt like the best place on earth.

Now I am grown up and the threat of getting snowed in makes living in the country less desirable.

I watch as the giant tree in the yard flails its branches in the storm, losing its fall mantel in the violent display of someone ripping off their own coat.  The gray brown wind continues to whirl like a monster against the walls and yet, I am at peace. I bask in the contentment of a hundred other just such afternoons and evenings, growing up out here in the bare hills. In summer time the hills were my favorite place to be, for I felt free and little and could dream uninhibited by reality. In the winter, this house was my favorite, because I knew that the hills would always be there waiting for me in springtime, and in the meantime, the house was my shelter and not only kept me safe from the cold, but gave me refuge to continue to dream and wonder.

Now, in this moment, I feel at once finely in-tune with the younger self of my past.  The memories of being snuggled up inside this big old ranch house are not merely re-imagined, but felt. They are a consistently flowing stream that I step into and let wash over me, keeping me connected to the child I once was. The great big, terrifying world of grownup responsibilities is outside these thick walls. Its endless possibilities and wants and disappointments cannot touch me here, sitting beside the hearth, surrounded by my animals. 

Suddenly I don’t feel like going out anymore, not because I’m scared of the storm or scared of the world, but because I am happy to be where I am in this moment, and I don’t want to waste the feeling of this warmth, this history, and this love.