"Hold a friend's hand through times of trial
Let her find love through a hug and a smile.
But also know when it's time to let go
For each and every one of us must learn to grow..."
[Sharon Heilbrunn]
It was one of the Chicken Soup books that brought me to this quotation. The reasons why I'm putting it on my blog are that 1)It happens to be one of my favourites and more importantly, 2)It happens to be one of those 'TRUTH HURTS' types that have successfully pierced my heart more than once.
Let me take you for a peep into my land now. I'm an extrovert~ my friends used to call me 'the life of the party', always laughing, smiling, jumping... an over-excessive display of energy... "Where do you get all this energy from?"..."For God's sake, don't you EVER feel tired..." used to flow the comments...
until one day someone asked "are you disturbed?"...and I didn't have an answer!
When I had started this blog, I had thought "I'm going to make it BIG... get people to read my stuff... gather traffic like I've done on monsoonmusic... update my orkut profile and write 'I blog at www.immortalmusings.blogspot.com *smiley* *smiley*...'
But NO! I've spotted the road block ahead and right now if you're reading my blog and I know you, you're probably one of my very close friends.
Friends...fiends... I wonder why one single letter should make such a difference! Anyway, I'll leave it on the experts and philosophics to solve that mystery; my observations on this subject might probably be too biased and complicated to handle! ..coz I like to speak in riddles... and more often than not, my quibbles are either too silly or too serious... and I trust neither of those two has any readership! (I mean, c'mmon, who'd like to read some undiluted crap? Who? I wouldn't do it for a thousand bucks!)
I've made a LOT of friends in these nineteen years of my life, and, I daresay, some are very dear ones. But the one thing I've never known is the meaning of a 'best friend'. Who's a best friend? One friend whom you know best? Or one who knows you best?... I don't know! I've not yet encountered one person who's understood me fully or whom I believe, I've understood fully. I remember reading somewhere 'Can anyone understand you fully?...Then how do you expect to understand someone fully?' ...moreover, how much do you
need to know a person to know him/her 'fully'? How 'full' does 'fully' mean?
.........TOO MANY QUESTIONS...and none will change my life... so why BOTHER answering them at all???Let me tell you a small secret. Right from the time I thought I knew what friendship was, I've given a lot of people the permission to be called my
best friend but... the friendship's never lasted for more than a few years atmost! There was my first friend Anusuya, a pretty girl who wore white frilly frocks like mine, loved to play on the swings of the local park, never said 'no' when I asked for spices during our
ranna-bati games...and now, these are
ALL and EVERYTHING I remember about her! Honestly, I remember spending long hours playing with her... but not even her face is etched on my memory.
After that, I've made lots of 'best friends', some for three months, some for a couple of years. With some I've lost touch, and those with whom I haven't... well, lets just say we contact through an email forward once in a while...!
(The other day I met one of them at Crossword. Her boyfriend recognised me...she didn't!!!)
So I've finally decided NEVER to have a best friend, [I do hereby promise never to call a friend, a best friend, from this second onwards] not because of the 'understanding' factor; its mainly because... well, I'd rather have a few good friends than call someone my best friend and risk losing that friendship!
Right now, I guess, I can safely call this my pet superstition, although I don't know if it qualifies as superstition; its so damn befitting!!
You're probably thinking "this girl is blogging out of sadness". Lemme correct you. I'm not. I'm just posting bits and pieces of things I used to write to Dorothy. Dorothy, by the way, was my diary. In my third post to her, I had called her my best friend; she's now dead.
A note to my friends...
I might not have known you...but I'll never forget you;
nuestra amistad significa mucho para mí.
