The Constant Ones
I am the worst possible case of “Cannot by any means possible keep a friend” syndrome. Making friends on its own is a whole mind-boggling experience on its own, so you can only imagine how keeping one is. I have a few constant people in my life, my dad.
I am a firstborn daughter. According to stories I have read and heard, first born daughters and daughters, in general, have a general attraction towards their fathers while male children have a similar affinity towards their mothers. I was not an exception. My mother tells me the tales of how I used to wake my father at the crack of dawn because I wanted him to take me for a walk outside. We would walk for a while, and then he would walk the rest of the way because I got tired and he had to carry me. Things have not changed, only these days we walk in the evenings when it is much cooler after the sun sets and I love watching the lights in the night. The cars’ headlights, the bicycle lamps, the street lights, when everyone is hurrying home for dinner, doing their last minute shopping or the road-side vendors are trying to catch their last fish for the day. I also have to walk the entire way because I think I’m too big to be carried anymore.
My mother. At 19, I think she is the sweetest person I have ever known. At 10, I thought half as much. I’m trying to see how it took me more than five years to figure out the other half. I guess they were indeed wise who said: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
’Tis absence, however, that makes the heart grow fonder.
- Miss Stickland, The Pocket Magazine of Classic and Polite Literature, 1832.
She represents to me the who, what and how of a mother to her children. Now that I am in college and a flight away from her it is much clearer what she means to me. The person who is willing to clean your behind should be one of your friends in deed, I know I wouldn’t do that for some of people I call friends. Would you? She has seen the worst of me and still bears with the bucket of confused trouble that I am. She probably hopes I will turn out to be the ‘bundle of joy’ that children are supposedly presumed to be. It’s not like she has a choice anyway.
My sister. She is my only sibling, 3 years younger than I am. We were rivals from the moment she was born. Actually, what would be correct to say would be that she was my arch nemesis from the day I was told I could not hold her because she was too little and when I noticed my mother spent more time with her than she did with me. My mother was mine and she was taking her away from me. The whole idea of a baby needing extra care compared to a 3-year-old who could already feed, bathe and partially-clothe herself and go around terrorizing the whole neighborhood at 06. 30a.m could not be fully comprehended by my brain at the time. She soon grew her own claws and we would scratch at each other whenever we could, until we realized that we only had each other. Then we still scratched but with full realization that we could not scratch to the death. She still loves me. Sometimes I think she loves me more than I love her. But even she doesn’t have a choice.
It was in high school that I was first introduced to and felt the impact of the “Best friends are a necessity” theory. The only people I really knew was my family and being in a boarding school kilometers away from home was daunting and in some aspects even threatening. By the second week of class, groups had been formed and friends had been chosen. I was one of the people I could categorize as anti-social. I didn’t see where I could fit in and so I didn’t bother trying. I cared, don’t get me wrong, I cared so much I cried because I just couldn’t fit in.
It was in my second year that I thought I got the chance to be a part of a group of friends. I even went further and thought I had a chance at a best friend, so I fought for it. I bought gifts, I wrote letters and notes, I spent most of my time checking up on them to see if they were fine. I tried as much as I could to be involved in activities they liked and support them. I did all the things I had read in books, all the things that best friends did for each other. I was all in. I had this chance and I was not going to let it go to waste. All went well for a while, my efforts were bearing fruit and for a moment I thought “I love my life”, but the moment did not last long. It wasn’t long till I realized I was the only one working so hard, to everyone else, I was dispensable.
I did not and still do not blame anyone for what I took myself through. At the moment, I blamed myself, for being stupid enough to give my all to people who would think twice about giving their all. So I stopped caring. I maintained every other normal interaction but I cut out all the extras, all the gifting and caring. I distanced my mind from any form of close friendship and turned myself to God, my family and myself. In all truth, they were the only ones I truly had.
It has been 2 years. I have found new people who have given me their shoulders to lean on, who have stayed when they could have left and who have shown me that there are people who can give their all, that the stories I read as a child could be real. I have also found those who make me question my fairy tales and I always pray that God gives me the grace and wisdom on how to interact with both. Amidst all this, they still remain.
As you may have noticed by now, as I hope you should have noticed, my constant friends are those who have no choice but to stay. Those who have been and still are constantly standing by me, whether I try to keep them or not. In fact, I don’t even have to try. And for them, I am eternally grateful.
