Friendships

Warning: This one is heavy.

I just watched the movie Stand By Me for, like, the millionth time. If you have not seen this movie, you need to get up right now, go to Hollywood Video, and rent it. Your experience of the 1980s is simply not complete without it. If you weren’t alive in the 1980s, you are too young to be reading strangers’ blogs. You should turn off the computer and go enjoy your youth, immediately. For those of you who have seen this movie, your memories may need a bit of a refresher.

The entire movie is narrated by the character Gordy, as an adult. The story is about 4 twelve-year-old boys: Gordy, Chris, Vern, and Teddy who go on an adventure through the woods to find a dead body. In the end, Gordy mentions that he and Chris drift away from Teddy and Vern after they start middle school. The last line of the movie is something along the lines of “I never again had friends like the friends I had when I was twelve, does anyone?” Which, of course, made me think about my friends when I was twelve.

The funny thing is, I didn’t have many friends when I was twelve. Well, I guess it wasn’t funny at the time, at least not to me. I know that the year I was twelve I met a lot of the friends that would eventually become important to me. It seems like that was about the time when a lot of new people came to town. I am pretty sure I was twelve when I met Missy and Megan, and only like 13 when I met Michelle…all of whom I am still friends with now. But really, I didn’t have any good friends at the time.

I also don’t really have friends that I just “drifted away from.” Of course there were people who moved away and were never heard from again. But usually, if I was friends with someone in the past, and I’m not anymore, there is a good reason. There is almost always some vicious, terrible story to go with those friendships…many of them would make good after-school-specials. And, that realization got me thinking even more.

Why is it that all my friendships end in a ball of flames? Am I really such a horrible bitch? Is what the magazine horoscope columns say about me true? Has being born a Pisces made me completely incapable of any productive social interaction? But, it can’t be true…because I do have some friends that I have been with for a very long time. Some of those friendships had breaks in them, but that was caused by physical distance more than anything, there weren’t big fights. So, this is what I have come up with.

When I was younger, I was even more passionate than I am now. Except my passion was less political and more personal. If I was your friend, I loved you, and if I loved you I would do anything for you. I would give you my last dime, literally. I would risk my safety, my freedom, or my life savings, if I thought it would make you even the tiniest bit happier. That is how I ended up living in my car. That is how I ended up walking alone to and from work at Blockbuster in Buffalo snow. That is how I ended up sleeping in the dressing rooms at JC Penney. That is how I ended up teaching myself how to cope with rape, over and over again. I had given away every last thing that I had, including my own soul, and absolutely nobody gave anything back. Now I know that the reason was that I was giving to the wrong people, but that wasn’t any comfort back then. It really still isn’t any comfort now. So I guess the reason those friendships ended so horribly was that I was merely a shell of a person when they ended. I had given away almost all of myself willingly, so whatever had been taken that I considered to be the “last straw,” it had to be something huge. I mean, if I forgave you for totaling my car or getting me grounded for a month, then the thing I didn’t forgive you for had to be bone-crushing. And all that has changed me. So now, I love very differently.

I have wonderful friends now. Some who have been around for a long time and some who are pretty new additions. And I do love them all. But honestly, I can’t say that I would give my last breath, or even my last dime, unless it was actually going to save their lives. I know my friends are reading this, and I hope this doesn’t make anyone angry. But the truth is, my responses have become much more proportional. Like, when I was younger, if I had $10 to my name and my best friend had $100, I would give her my last $10 so she could afford that new stereo she wanted, even though it meant I wouldn’t eat dinner that night. And, my “best friend” would have taken that $10. Now, if I had $10 left, I probably wouldn’t give it to anyone unless they were starving, and even then I might only share it. That sounds selfish and cold, and I know that. But that’s what happens I guess. I have been conditioned to fear the worst in people. Or maybe I just finally learned that nobody is gonna take care of me but me, so I have to put myself first.

I think it is a good lesson though. You can’t take care of others unless you take care of yourself, and so starting with that as your base is probably a good idea. “Put the mask on yourself before assisting others,” right? I guess that movie just made me sad because all those boys took care of each other on that trip. (Also, because I have an inexplicable soulful connection to Corey Feldman that will never die.) They fought, but they always forgave. And I think that if I had been on an adventure like that when I was that age, with the people I called “friends” then, I would have woken up alone in the woods to find my friends had eaten all my food. And that would have been okay with me, because I would have brought the food for them anyway. I guess I am jealous of people who got to have give and take friendships like that. And I wonder what I could have done differently, in the course of my life, so that fewer people would have seen me as a target, and so I would have fewer vicious memories to deal with.