One thing that became painfully obvious over the last year was that I have been utterly devoid of a 'best friend' for a long time. I track the eras of my life by who was by BFF at the time... Heather Woodworth, Stacey Clarke, Jannene MacNeil, Amy Davidson, Jenny Beattie, Heather Penney, Erin Keefe... as I've gotten older, it's harder to find that magical bond. Harder to maintain, too, much harder. I've relied on my partners as stand-ins for this role, but it wasn't the same (nor was it fair to them to expect it). So I've worked a lot this year at deriving the substance of intimacy, shared experiences and support I used to get from one person, from many instead.
Like distributed energy systems, building this grid is tricky. It's not like a cohesive group of friends (Scoobies, or the Swing Club) to rely on, instead it's an often amorphous amalgam of high school / university / past work friends that I see seldom, and online acquaintances that I know well, if not perhaps with an IRL connection. A few of these have made a genuine difference in bringing me out the state I was in a year ago... Melissa, Russell, and Jocelyn, of course... but also Tommy and Rob, both godsends; Jannene and Michelle who regrounded me into who I was and still am; Aaron, and recently, Peter, who didn't really see the dark times, but is a joy to be around.
There is no one common thing about all my friends. Some of them have almost nothing in common with me, in fact. But I am grateful for each and every one, including the ones I didn't name.
Wow, that got more yearbooky than I expected. Anyway, it was just meant as a caption for my alltime favourite Queen song:
I have opinions on things and I like to talk about them.
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