extended pyschosis: errors and omissions

It occurs to me that in all my complaining about my lack of attachment, I've been rudely overlooking a friend so significant that she has become in many respects "the sister I never had."

I'm talking about S2.

Of course there's attachment there. That has lately become rather obvious to me, not just because she helped me out when I was sick but because there is a depth of caring between us that can only be described as a form of attachment.

I have been on several occasions rather touched by the things S2 has done, not the least of which was giving a new life to some very "precious" stones my late brother gave me about 20 years ago. And there was the aforementioned help she provided to me last week when I was ill.

But S2's greatest contribution to my life has been her participation, perhaps unwittingly, in the resurrection of my trust in others. On Thursday, she made a funny little comment to me about the lack of certain exclusionary clauses in "the contract of our friendship," and I felt a deep and keen appreciation for how transparent she can be in her relating to others.

There is an evolutionary theory that we choose our mates -- and I think it stands to reason that we choose our friends the same way -- as a result of propinquity, which is just basically what's under our noses. We look around at whatever's nearby and select the best possible character from the pile. When it comes to mates, there's a lot of dispute about just what comes into play and why we select those that we do. No doubt there should be equally curious questions about how and why we choose our friends.

I like to believe that when it comes to friends, a guiding force is selecting someone who's good for us, but this hasn't always been the case for me. I've tended toward people who are deferential and polite and not terribly passionate, and I suspect my reasoning for doing so is the desire to find the opposite of the conflict and chaos of the FOO Fighters (FOO standing for "Family of Origin").

But S2 is different. She's incredibly compassionate, loving and generous, while also managing to be direct and occasionally confrontational. She puts up with a lot from me but doesn't suffer my bullshit. She is also magnificent in her interactions with children, and I have learned a lot from observing her.

I couldn't tell you what I give S2 in return. Some kind of supportive engagement? Food and chocolate in class? Intelligent, adult conversation with a classmate who doesn't mind the constant interruptions faced by a mom? A certain degree of personal whackiness that allows her to feel especially sane (a benefit enjoyed by many of my friends, I should note)? Who knows what....

In any case, it became obvious to me that in my whining about my lack of attachment, I had overlooked a significant friend. Friendships may not exactly qualify as the type of attachment which I have noted is missing from my life, but neither are the powerful ones to be dismissed as I managed to do in an earlier blog post.

S2 isn't the kind of person who would complain about the oversight. But I'm the kind of person who takes a second look at what I've written and corrects my errors and omissions. This was one of them.