The Truth About Friendship: The Before and After

Last night I posted a question on Facebook about whether or not people feel like they have “before” and “after” friends, mainly because I was thinking about my own week. I know you all haven’t heard from me much this week, and that’s because I was lucky enough to have a friend of mine (who I hadn’t seen in a very long time) stay with me while she was in town on business.

First of all…I forgot how fun it was just to have a girlfriend in the house. I would get the kids to bed and we would talk and talk about life, marriage, kids, and…most importantly…how I should treat this zit on my chin that has its own zip code. It was nice to have a chick-flick companion and someone who didn’t roll their eyes at me when I placed a salad before them.

Second…it was just flat-out nice to have another adult in the house. You don’t realize how much you miss that until someone is there, helping you do dishes while you give the kids a bath. Something like that is more valuable to me than jewelry these days.

We talked, and talked, and talked some more. We talked about my late husband and what’s different about my life now (other than the obvious). We talked about her life…the things she loves and the things she would change. No subject was off-limits and no topic too sensitive.

Sigh. It was nice.

At some point in the last few days it really hit me how much I had changed. There’s something about talking about your life and saying things out loud…you realize how different things really are.

One of the things we talked about was what each year of loss has meant to me. I was explaining to her how I really thought that once I hit that first year mark, things would magically get better. That suddenly the loss wouldn’t be there. That people wouldn’t refer to me as “the widow” anymore. I was surprised, disappointed, and somewhat devastated that that wasn’t the case. The realization that I would always carry this loss with me just about brought me to my knees.

By the middle of the second year, Loss and I had developed a truce. I agreed to not fight him anymore, if he would let me have a normal day every once in awhile. That was the beginning of us learning to co-exist.

I just wish he wouldn’t steal the covers all of the time.

I started talking about year 3 as “The Year of Change.” That was the year that I fully realized that I would never be the same and embraced it. I started calling myself “the widow”…I owned it and accepted it as part of who I am. I knew that I would always miss my husband, but I would never want to give up who I had become. Because before this loss, I had no idea what I was capable of. And now…the sky was the limit. If I could dream it…I could do it. And I alone would have to make it happen.

Which as you know…is an exciting and absolutely terrifying thought.

A lot of our conversation turned to the support I’ve had through this online community. How the people I’ve met encourage me every day and let me know that things can get better. How everyone shares stories and opinions and the most intimate parts of their souls with strangers who are constantly inspired by how they are living with their loss. How even though I may meet someone whose pain is new and raw, I always see a glimmer of what could be in that person.

And how getting to know everyone…it’s like Christmas morning to me every day.

The most interesting thing about spending time with this friend is that she’s not someone I see or talk to every day. She moved about a year before my husband passed away. We lost touch and grew apart, as friends do, and the next time I saw her was at his funeral.

So, looking at myself through her eyes really gave me a different perspective. Since I hadn’t seen her in three years…it was kind of like seeing a 7 year old you hadn’t seen for that long. Think of how much they grow. You might not even recognize them.

But it was such a comfort to me that I could pick up with her just as we would have in the “before” days. Yes, I’d “grown” a foot, but she could see that it’s still me under all of these changes.

It made me wonder about “before” and “after” friends. I know I certainly have people who fall into those categories…the ones who know me and the ones who knew us. And the ones who just walked away.

For those who have walked away…I’d like to think that that would have happened anyway. That those friendships were probably a little shallower than I originally thought and that as I got older, with or without my husband, those relationships probably would not have held up to the test of…life.

And frankly…as I get older, with or without my husband, I don’t have time for that shit anyway.

For those friends who have stuck with me…I think I needed to give them the time and the room to evolve just as I have. I guess realistically…I thought of me as “us” for a long time too. It’s taken me a few years to think of me as just…me. And just as they have tried to be as understanding as possible about the changes that I’ve made, I guess I needed to give them the time and space to adjust to those changes.

Because the truth is…for my close friends, my online friends, and the ones who can just pick up where we left off…

…I wouldn’t be me without them.

Is Social Networking Really All That Social?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m kind of excited to go out and see The Social Network. A big part if this is because I like the writer, Aaron Sorkin, who also wrote A Few Good Men, The West Wing, and The American President.

All good stuff.

I watched him give an interview on The View the other day (I know…how very girly of me) and one of the questions they asked him was whether or not he thought Facebook was good for society and if it brings us closer together. And his response was basically, no, he didn’t think it was.

I can kind of see his point. I mean, one of the things I looooove about Facebook is that I can get on there, see what someone from my past is up to…and never really have to talk to them if I don’t want to. You know that bitchy girl from high school? Well, now you know she’s got 10 kids and not looking as “peppy” as she once did. But did you actually have to talk to her to find that out? Nope. You just got on Facebook.

You know that weird cousin who never comes to any of the family reunions and you’re always wondering why? Well, now you know he’s running his own kayak rental company up in Alaska and lives in a single room cabin with no plumbing or electricity. Did you really have to interact to figure that out? Heck, no. You just saw the pictures of his Unabomber-like structure in a friendly little place called Facebook.

And don’t even get me started on that boss you once had who you were positive would end up in jail some day. He may not have access to Facebook, but you can get the low-down when you peek onto his wife’s page.

So I can see how this isn’t exactly bringing us closer together. Because we don’t actually talk anymore. We just update our status.

I think I was one of the last hold-outs when Facebook came around. The last official hold-out is my sister who absolutely refuses to get on. And then asks me to look people up for her (which I think is cheating).

I wasn’t a My Space person and I don’t Tweet (although I may have to start…so be prepared to be annoyed about the fact that I’m comin' atcha from all over the place). My friends kept telling me that I needed to get on, but I didn’t want to. It took a major incentive to get me signed up.

A cocktail party.

One of my sorority sisters told me that I had to get on because they were all getting together at someone’s house for some wine and appetizers. Now up until that point, I couldn’t see the point of “social networking.” But throw in a $10 bottle of wine and my fingers couldn’t type fast enough.

After that...I never looked back. I started getting on there, looking people up from my past, and taking meaningless quizzes from people who couldn’t spell “personality” but in 3 questions could tell me every facet of mine.

I couldn’t wait to find out which Smurf I was and how high I could get my score on Word Twist.

I became somewhat of a Facebook addict when my husband had been gone for about a year. You know how that is…you can’t sleep, so you get on there and see who else is online at 3 AM.

And let me tell you…in my social network…I’m flying solo.

I started doing what I suspect a lot of you started doing…searching for the word “widow” to see what came up. And that just changed everything for me.

I started meeting “strangers” who, after awhile, didn’t seem so strange. I started connecting with people whom I’d never met, but seemed to know me better than people I’d known for years. I was able to post questions, vent, “talk” to people who, like me, were up at 3 AM.

I know that since I’ve started the Widow Chick page, a lot of us have marveled at how amazing it is that we can connect in this way. It would be better if we could all be together in person, but, years ago, widows would suffer alone in silence because they had no way to get in touch with one another. And now…we may be suffering, but silence is not what you hear.

It’s the sound of keys clicking away.

So, I guess I can kind of see Mr. Sorkin’s point. In some ways, it’s made us drift a little further apart as a society.

But in the Widow World…it’s a raging success.