For as long as I can remember, change has bothered me. Not so much the changes I can control, but the changes I can't control. I don't mind change so long as I have chosen to implement it. If I've ever told you, or you've ever heard me quoted as saying, "Change is inevitable...change is beautiful...change makes the world go round (I distinctly remember writing that in an essay once)..." or something like that, don't call me up and start arguing with me. I realize I say some contradictory things. I am a contradictory thing. "I'm a walking contradiction." I love and hate almost everything almost equally. I am of differing opinions about most things over the course of a day. Today I presented arguments against one thing and then for that very same thing within a single topic within a single conversation within a single glass of beer. I don't know. Love me or leave me but don't try to change me.
Here's what's bugging me. When people change, which is one of those changes I can't control, one of those changes nobody consults me on, it really bothers me. I don't like it. I'm hurt, depressed, angry, confused. Like I said earlier this weekend while some friends and I were talking about these changed people, when you're friends with someone, you make an investment. It's give and take. (And don't start with me. I know that sometimes I take more than I give. There may be some people reading this and thinking, "Huh. Well, he hasn't called me lately." I'll call you soon, promise.) But you make an investment. Two people start a friendship together, you nuture it, you can see immediately its potential and you take the proper steps to insure that this friendship reaches its potential and that you are both able to reap the rewards that a proper friendship has to offer.
You offer someone your couch to crash on. You clean the vomit off of that couch. They buy you lunch and you laugh about it. They cry, your shoulder gets wet and salty and they thank you the next day when they feel better. You give them a couch for their new apartment. You then crash on their new couch. You call them from a foreign country and they throw you a party when you get back. Time passes. Lives get busy and you don't see eachother as much but that's the way it goes. People have things to do, it doesn't mean anything.
Or does it?
Does it mean that during this time apart they turn into exactly the people you dislke most in the world? Do they go throwing their bodies and emotions around with reckless abandon? These same bodies and emotions you encouraged them to safeguard and treat with respect and share only with those who most deserve and respect them? Do they forget who they are, who they have been and who they can become?
Apparently that's exactly what it means.
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6 comments:
I think friendship can become a contradiction. One day you do those things: throw them a party, clean up vomit off the couch, and take them out for lunch. Then not speak with them for sometime, but it isn't any one persons fault. Who ultimately cares who called who last or who made the decision of what to do last time. Friendship is an informal relationship. It's played it by ear. Change makes and takes friendship. I guess we just accept change, but I too believe I'm a walking contradiction.
You make a good point, and your take on friendship is probably a more reasonable and realistic one than mine. Most things are more informal ("played by ear") than I would have them be. If their change was inevitable, which is possible, I still wish they had become something other than destructive slutmachines.
Are you calling me a destructive slutmachine?!?!
Whether or not you are, here is my take: I think everyone feels hurt when their friends change for the worse. When you are in a friendship, you really wish (or might I say expect) the best from that person. When they fall from those standards you've set, it hurts. Especially if they fall below the standards you knew them for when you first met them. I may not be exactly on target but I hear where your comin from, I feel ya. Even if you are calling me a slutmachine. :)
Yes, Terra and Nicole, it is you who are destructive slutmachines. Thanks for the compliment Nicole. (P.S. I'm not really talking about you guys, T and N.) No one is to blame for the breakdown in our friendship; I for one am extremely busy and I assume they are too, so that's not what concerns me. What concerns me are the decisions they are making nowadays. And it seems these decisions, and these changes, are irreversible.
You can try to talk them out of their destructive behavior, but if they won't be persuaded, I'm afraid you have no choice but to stand by and help them up when they need it -- if they need it and if you are compassionate enough to do it.
Jaron, I agree with Mom. You've made these people your friends for a reason. At some point in everyone's life they make choices that they aren't exactly happy with later. But as their friends we are here to "clean their puke." So when they snap out of it, you'll be there to advise them and help them up....without mentioning, "I told you so."
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