Friends

I quit Facebook recently. I always knew it was a bad idea to ever join Facebook, but I am enough of an attention whore that I joined up, posted all sorts of pictures, talked about personal stuff, argued politics (for a time) and joined groups that interested me and then just got sick of feeding the beast. Plus the revelations about your personal info (big surprise there). I was sick of all the marketing, all the perfect statuses, the wonderful vacations, etc. I knew most of the people on my list and I knew that their lives are not that great all the time. In addition, it was a huge time waster.

So here am I using another digital psy-ops site (you think Google is going to do no evil, or whatever their bs motto is?) but I feel more in control here for some reason. I want to talk about friends.

I have learned, rather late in life, that you don't ever really have many friends. Not really good ones. Mostly we have friendly acquaintances. If you're lucky to have really good friends, take care of them. I learned, again late in life, who some of my better friends were. Unfortunately for me, one of them in particular, and his wife, have passed away. He, at 48 on his birthday, and she about 6 years later, just before their youngest child was about to graduate high school. Extremely tragic. The tragedy for me however was, I realized too late, what a good friend this guy was to me. He kept the friendship alive throughout the years even though I tended to neglect it. He kept trying to keep it alive and kept reaching out to me, inviting me to be his better friend. I failed and all too late realized what a wonderful friend he was. Every time I think of this person, I cannot help but choke down the tears but honestly, most of the time, I just let them flow.

I have also learned that your family is often your truest source of friends. I've lost two sisters and a brother in the last 12 years and in the case of my brother in particular, I feel that loss most acutely. He and I were friends, we spent time together, we "hung out", had many common interests from our youth, even through he was ten years older than I. He was a bit of a mentor in some ways when I was young, as was my other brother who is still with us. It pains me to think I will never see him again, never enjoy his company, camaraderie or his support. He is, like my friend who died on his birthday, an irreplaceable loss. I still have my wife, my brother, my wife's brother, my son but I do not feel like my friends, even those who claim to be my best, oldest friends, really care one whit about me and that can only engender he same feelings within me towards them.

So, if you have a good, true friend, try to take good care of them, you don't get many in this life.