It ain't Often that You'll Ever Find a Friend

A few of my friend’s recently got to see The Fleet Foxes AND Bon Iver. Together. I got to see Fleet Foxes earlier in the summer. They were amazing. However, this post is not about the Fleet Foxes (even though I stole a lyric for the title); it’s about friendship. I have always been blessed with amazingly wonderful friends. But now most of them are far away, and I miss them terribly. Instead of eating dinner with them most nights, or sitting in a their living room or basement or porch studying, listening to music, drinking tea, smoking, talking with them—making time and space for relationships—instead of those things, I read their blogs and stalk them on facebook or talk on the phone or into the camera on my computer which makes eye-contact painfully non-existent. The comedy of distance, the tragedy of separation has made me think about what a truly good friendship looks like. True friendship; not passing acquaintances that just fill the time and prevent us from feeling bored, or—heaven forbid—alone. My truest friends are those kinds of people who spend a good amount of time in their own heads. This might sound strange, but what I mean is that they take time to consider things. Their minds are full of ideas—their own and those of others. They are interesting because they have interests. They have strong opinions and convictions and will tell me what they think. My friends want the best for me and will tell me when I’m being stupid. “Jennette, you’re being stupid. Stop it.” Spending time with them is soothing and soul-feeding. More and more, I have come to realize that true friendship and community are rare. Being surrounded by friends in college, I think I took this for granted sometimes. I just assumed I would always have plenty of people that I could sit and talk with about things that mattered to me, and that those things would be important to them as well. C.S. Lewis remarked, “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What!You too? I thought I was the only one.” Luckily there are telephones and webcams and books. A friend of mine once told me that you can’t be lonely if you have a good book. And I don’t mean to say that I don’t have any friends here, or that I’m very lonely. I just mean to express that I miss being able to sit in the same room with my very close friends and tell them anything. So, if you are my friend in Colorado, don’t be offended. I appreciate you very much. And if you are my friend elsewhere, know that I miss you, and please forgive all of my many punctuation errors.

Also, bonus points if you can pick out the un-cited song lyrics I threw out there.