Izzyisms

Thought I Was the Only One

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You, too? Thought I was the only one." - C.S. Lewis

Friendship is, I have learned in the past few months, one of the most precious and important aspects of a life. Our friends - those personally favored people that we have formed a special bond with - are extensions of our very self; revealing wondrous, often hidden, facets of our psyche.

Carl Jung once said, "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."  I would like to share with you how my friends - old and new - have transformed my very being.

In the past couple of years, I - dealing with a death, family and work stresses, and my own bipolarity - became somewhat anti-social.  All of my close friends had moved away and I was lax on keeping up with them and completely remiss in making new ones.  Even at work, everyone I had been close to and formed a bond with had gone on to other jobs.

In my dismal and rather unhappy state, I really did not mind the absence of close friendships, shoulders to lean on, and shared laughter.  In fact, I was rather happy not having to deal with any of it, as the act of pretending to be jovial when you're down in the dumps is exhausting - as anyone who has suffered from any form of depression or even a simple case of the blues can tell you.  So I did not miss my friends as I normally might have; I soon slipped easily into a reclusive state.

The past year has been different.  In fact, my thirtieth year on this orb we call Earth has been very good for me.  I am finally actively working to control and live with my bipolar disorder; which I have also accepted I have.  I am concentrating more on my writing, and I have - with the help of an amazing pain specialist - finally found some relief from my leg pain.

Something, even more amazing than all the others combined, happened as well.  I made a friend at work; an employee who joined our agency.  Then an old friend came back and I became closer with the older lady who worked across from my office and we, too, became friends.

One day I realized that I no longer hated my job; I no longer, at night in bed, dreaded the next day with anguished anxiety.  In fact, I found, I was looking forward to going to work!  Every night as I went to bed, I simply could not wait to get up, go in to work, and start my day.  When this change in my attitude occurred, I pondered it only a short while before it hit me - it was my friends that had made all the difference.

Not a single thing else had changed about my work experience.  I was doing the same work as before (more of it, actually), I was still, as they say, underpaid and overworked.  I still had the same frustrations with my supervisor, and dealt with the same annoying little problems I always had.  Only one thing had changed - I now had friends at work.

Initially, when the last of my friend co-workers had left our agency (the aforementioned one that is now back), I thought I was okay with being "on my own" and having no one I was really close to in the office.  I figured I'd get more work done; that I'd just come in, do my job, and go home.  Yet that is not what happened.  Unbeknownst to me, the lack of friendly faces, laughter, and someone to talk to had worn me down and made my days long, drab, and - to be honest - rather miserable.

This might not be such a startling revelation to some of you, but for me - the strong-willed and independent type who believes she needs no one - it was a striking realization.

Outside of work the situation was the same.  My small but close circle of friends had all moved out of state, and my best friend since childhood was busy setting up house with his partner; they recently purchased a 1920s bungalow in the area known as Spanish Town and were consumed with remodeling and starting a life together.  My boyfriend and I, homebodies to begin with, quietly and quickly adjusted to a life that no longer included an active social aspect.  At first, as I had believed with work, I thought it would be nice to not have to bother with going out, spending money, and eating up our downtime on the weekends.  We sort of relished the idea - with our busy, long-houred work days - of having no social obligations.

My social apathy leeched into my online life, and I chatted less with longtime friends in instant messenger - my daily chats with Rosie even became somewhat less (though, no matter what has gone on in my life, since we met, Rosie has always been a part of it).  I no longer visited message boards or forums I once enjoyed, and I - naturally - dropped out of the metaverse completely.

(Let me mention here that some of this going-inside myself was necessary to the healing I had to do as I came to terms with my bipolar disorder and leg condition and began to work on improving those circumstances in my life.  I needed a lot of "me" time, a lot of quiet space to self-reflect, relax, and find some peace.  I'm glad to say that - because I was able to have that - I am able, willing, and ready to get back into "social" life once more.)

They say the powers that be give us just what we need as we need it, and I believe that.  As I began to feel happy and free once more, I began to make new friends - and reconnect with some old ones.  My new friends at work were part of this, but they were not the only ones.  As I felt ready to reconnect with the living, so to speak, I - much to Rosie's utter delight - rejoined Second Life.  I was surprised to realize how much I had missed it, and often now muse how I left it for so long.

As I have been blessed with making new friends at work and home, I have also been blessed with reconnecting with old and making some new friends in SL.  When I came back in, Rosie was the only person with whom I still had a connection, and she graciously brought me into the circles of people she had been sharing her virtual life with in my absence.  I thank her nearly every day for introducing me to such amazing, beautiful, and delightfully unique people - some I knew from before but never had a chance to actually be friends with, and some I am meeting and befriending for the very first time.  I count myself blessed and honored to call people such as Camthan Hax, Marx Dudek, and Carmen Greenfield among those I call (and who call me) "friend".

I cannot even begin to tell you the change in my life, in my attitude about life.  I, always the loner, never really felt that I needed friends.  In fact, being the anti-social hermit I can sometimes be, I never felt I ever even really wanted friends.  That may sound harsh, but there it is.  I have always loved the friends I had - insanely so - yet I never really understood that I did, also, need them.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." - Anais Nin

In meeting and befriending all of these wonderful people - in my work, home, and virtual environments - I have learned a great deal about myself.  I have felt and experienced new understandings, new ideologies, and new nuances within my self by allowing these remarkable beings a place in my own world.  I like to believe I have enhanced and enlivened their own worlds with my presence as well.  That's one of the beautiful things about friendship - the natural, unconscious give and take; the ability to enhance each other's life simply by being a part of it.

Thank you - each of you - to the friends I have had, still have, have just made, and have yet to make - for making my world a better place to exist in.

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." - Marcel Proust