So said the brilliant singer-songwriter Al Stewart. It's a piece of knowledge that you acquire as you go through life, but even when you know it, it isn't always so simple to put into practice. I think I learned it, quite hard, about 15 years ago. Yet even now I find I don't always enact it in my life.
Thoughts over recent weeks have taken me to an old university friend, someone I had a complicated friendship with, but who nonetheless became someone I felt very close to, someone I cared a great deal about, a person in that rare "soul matey" category. We shared many years of friendship together, and even when post-university life took us to differing locations, we always made time for each other - either on the phone, or by travelling to each other's homes every so often. This continued for a number of years before a rather silly argument tore us apart. We've both apologised since then, but it appears that the damage - or rather the time taken - has left too big a chasm.
Over the last couple of months I've been reflecting very hard on friends and relationships, and really saw the value in keeping this one alive, if possible. So I've gone back again in humble terms I think, being completely non-judgemental and highly apologetic, holding my hands up to where I went wrong, and trying to light a pathway forwards for us to take together. I think blame lies in both camps, but even that doesn't bother me - I would really just like my friend back in my life.
And what was the response? Precious little, so far at least. Sure she replied, but it's become a stilted Whatsapp conversation with long pauses, unanswered questions and little coherence. My offer to buy her lunch and talk it through put on the back-burner. My phone call, when I overcame my nerves enough to make it, rang off.
She's her own person of course, very busy, and perfectly within her rights to not want to talk, meet, or make-up, so I write this without any judgement or commentary on how she feels (how could I know that?) whatsoever. But where does it leave me? I have to take comfort in Al's words above, that if something is so hard and abstract to achieve, you're better off just leaving it - at least for now. I'll caveat that by saying that I'm always open to reconciliation, if ever the phone rings in the future then I certainly won't have closed my heart. But it's in hope, not expectation. There’s not really anything else I can do.
I must admit, I don't think I ever had a friendship die, that I cared about. Most of the time you fall by the wayside of the casual acquaintences in your life, and that's ok, friends come in-and-out of your life for a season, they say. But this one was different; I miss her a lot, and that makes me very sad.
Advice appreciated, naturally. In the meantime, here's Al Stewart's If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It from the 1976 album, Year of the Cat:
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