The Four-Year Gift.
I spent this weekend with forty best friends.
It’s so refreshing to find myself in a place where I belong, where nothing I say and no mistake I’ve made is too far. There is nothing you can do to make these people think the sun doesn’t shine out your ass, and even if they don’t think so highly, you still deserve a hug and a warm welcome to the rooms we all entered broken and aching and near-destruction.
Anyone who keeps up with this blog–hell, anyone who knows me–knows heavy social situations tie up my tongue, numb my tact gland, and turn any inkling of confidence into forgotten mush. Still, I somehow turn myself over to a power higher than me, one that practically lifts me from the armpits and floats me to the front of the room to share and receive the gifts I’ve been given through all the crap.
I have a lot to learn, we all do. Yet we continually teach each other the little pieces of life knowledge that are still buried underneath our shattered pasts. We learn to lead, to discipline, to open up and allow ourselves some semblance of inner serenity. At the very least, you’ve got someone who will stay up on the phone with you all Christmas Eve when you’re by yourself, with nothing but a pack of cigarettes and an adolescent insomnia problem.
It’s kind of like that cartoon where that kid has a really miserable life, and gets fairy godparents as some kind of bribe from god to apologize for fucking it up so badly. I suppose that was all I ever truly needed–a real friend.
