On Friendship

Friendship reminds me of the ocean. It ebbs and flows, according to the moon and the tides. It can be calm and relaxed and enticing. Or it can rip our feet out from underneath us or worse, dump us unceremoniously upside down, until we're gasping for breath and wondering what the hell happened.

I have to admit that I am anxious and sensitive about friendship.As a lonely and awkward child, I spent a lot of time in my own company. Friendships could be  fleeting, fragile and fraught with danger. At 12, I lost my best friend, my brother Michael, when he surrendered to the relentless grasp of drug abuse, I think that's why I married so young. I yearned for a friend.

Needless to say, marriage wasn't enough to sustain me. I made friends tentatively and seemed to lose them to distance or the drift that often happens in relationships My then husband didn't help. He was jealous of all other influences in my life, including our children.

Then miraculously, as I grew older (and hopefully a bit wiser), true friendships became easier to find and establish and grow. This accelerated with the end of my marriage. My house was filled with laughter and noise and love and belonging. Everything I'd always wanted.

I began concentrating on giving friends space. I practised letting any perceived barbs wash over me and then back and away. I remember a hilarious episode; a close girlfriend coming to my door, apologising wholeheartedly for her behaviour about three months previously. My response was -"that's OK. I just thought you were having a bad day!"

And I am very lucky that the light of my life, Michael, is my husband, lover and best friend. And I have maintained other close friendships over time and distance. They are the Beverley Blossoms, the Lush sisters and the Bolshy Divas. As well as making new, eclectic interesting friendships now in Heavenly Beverley.

Which is why losing a friendship, now,  has come as a terrible shock. The speed and intensity of  this relationship's disintegration has confounded us both. Because Michael shared the friendship with me. We thought we knew our friend, but apparently we didn't. An unexpected spat escalated into open warfare. And this happened on my watch, under our roof.

I have been devastated, particularly by the aftermath. I have had to choose the many over the one. Because this breakdown didn't just affect me. A whole group has been left burnt by the fallout. So what could I do? Support the one (who alienated the others) or support the rest of us left damaged and wounded. I have tried to do both since the episode of disaster that triggered the end.

And of course, I can't be successful. The one is defiant, absorbed and resistant to any suggestion that doesn't agree with her comprehension. She is like an injured beast who stepped into a maelstrom of her own creation and is now out for recompense. Which I can't support. So the friendship is currently and completely lost.

Can this relationship be repaired? Anything is possible. Time will tell. And even is that does happen, I will be wary. Once bitten, twice shy.

And in the meantime, I have my other friendships to sustain me, to support me, that carry on, both in spite of and because of, the chaos of this breakdown. And I have Michael, who has just found me, in the patient lounge of the hospital, and enveloped me with a loving embrace that has renewed my optimism for us, for my other friendships and for our lives.

Best of all, we're going home to the House that Rocks in Heavenly Beverley!

Friendships - November 2014.