If you know me, you know I'm both frustrated and fascinated by the cultural, societal, and linguistic emphasis we place on romantic relationships relative to friendships. I could dedicate an entire blog domain on my endless thoughts on this, which my first post since this blog's "revival", Weddings: A Celebration of Friendship begins to touch on (begins). As a side note, while I clearly resent the tendency to frame romantic relationships as the raison d'être of life, I certainly don't intend to diminish their power, wonder, or gravity.
Occasionally in my life (the whole twenty whopping years hitherto) I have recognized that the time span of potential friendship for someone with whom I felt a unique connection, a spark of platonic chemistry, a 'same-page-ness' , has passed or was never realized. I am faced with the recognition that this person is a friend "who got away". Maybe we were right under the close-ness threshold that would allow space for virtual keeping-in-touch, maybe we never quite felt the opportunity to deepen the relationship, maybe the friendship dwindled to acquaintance-ship and withered there for too long. There's endless reasons why it never leafed or stuck. And it's a helpless, quietly sad, realization. There's rarely the drama or tears or profound words that are often present at the close of a romantic relationship with these faded or cut friendships. Often it's only in hindsight that you can even see they got away. Without lessening the hurt of a retired romance, these unrealized or dissolved friendships can be especially frustrating because while with a romantic partner, for many people, you either end up with them ultimately and exclusively, or the relationship expires, with friendships you can continue indefinitely as many as you can nourish. Thinking along this vein, you could have kept them in your life, you could have attained and maintained a friendship, but for any number of infinite reasons, it didn't happen, and there is, in my opinion, a special grief for that.
I'm also fascinated by the incredibly mysterious nature of great friendships. There's hundreds, maybe thousands of people in the world with whom you might have an eternally unrealized, inexplicably crisp connection with, and that's overwhelming and a little sad. But it's also guaranteed that some of these people you will meet, and some, you will keep. There's something thrilling about knowing that there will always be new people to "discover", new friendships that reveal themselves at the most unsuspecting times, and new ways to learn about, empathize with, and marvel at the friendships you hold already and feel ever underserving of.
The number of people in my heart but not in my address book or recent-call list grows yearly. I'll probably never know what became of fifth grade-summer camp McClain, who made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe when I was scared to go to the camp nurse to get a tick (in my armpit, no less) removed, or Jesse from elementary ballet who liked green crayons specifically and never held her two years seniority over me, or any number of now acquaintances I know from more recent eras of my life, who I'll refrain from naming.
Next time you see me stopped at a red light, windows down, blasting Meryl Streep's arresting rendition of Slipping Through My Fingers, don't get it twisted. It's not necessarily a romance, and despite my best efforts it's not my daughter's upcoming marriage, but every now and then I still feel the subtle little sting of missing and mourning the friends who got away. But then again, you never really know who you'll stumble into...
