Well, it has been a long time since I wrote anything at all and I am not pleased with myself as a result. I had hoped to make regular entries covering many topics and for them to be more than enthralling. Alas I have not. Nevermind all that now, as I had a birthday a few days ago and while I find that they are less than enjoyable now, I received a rather sweet ‘present’ from a special friend. I was rather overcome and felt compelled to emulate the gift. Being rather productive as a result, I thought I would share what I had written. As personal as it is, I don’t think it is all that private; especially given the vocal and colourful nature of my associations with this friend and of course, his already out-going nature. So here it is, a letter to a friend:
“I find myself near the end of that anniversary that reminds us all of our mother’s agony and I am contemplative.
I received the usual Facebook birthday wishes – from most of my Facebook friends – and I underwent the usual procedures via telephone with my mother. I am however writing this and dare I say recording this, because I received a video of sorts from a friend of a rare sort indeed, and I am without doubt that at the very least, it was meant in the purest friendship offered to me by this creature. And I hope to reciprocate if that is at all possible.
A creature of light and smiles who at least to me, and while he has his own troubles, has a might to him that I can only hope to mirror. To this I would add that I have felt closest to that which I have long sought, in his company; being no more than Skype if that it is at all remarkable – and I speak of friendship. A potent shade of friendship that in my weakness and woe I have considered to be like a panacea for my many, malformed maladies.
Just to be clear, I hope not to burden you with records of my ramblings but this is a moment of madness born in an instant of contentment and hope. I am recording this to be as much a thank-you for and a musing upon, the friendship of which I speak. I would not be surprised if it were to grow into a series of meditations but for now, I shall begin with a thank-you and go on to some length – at which I am as ever, uncertain – describing my immediate milieu and the resulting motivation for this deed.
So onto business. The business of thanking a friend. For his fervency and the fascination with hope I thought I had lost which he has without quite knowing it, given me.
We met on the internet and I concede it was at the end of a long waking night for myself and the beginning of another day for him; I was shamefully less that dressed though not as a lower a being as anyone listening might infer, but I suppose what there was to be seen – which I had rendered very carefully – caught my friend’s eye. I had not intended to partake in any unseemly acts and I feel very repentant for my boredom, but nevertheless, I was asked as quickly as I could read it, from where I thought my friend was appearing. I guessed by his visage that he was Spanish or Italian and I was right with the latter. What luck indeed, as I had learned a little Italian when I was younger, and in that moment I learned that a little Italian was someone with whom I was to share a kinship for which I had craved for too long. Soon enough we moved onto Skype and as quickly as I was intrigued by the interest my guest had shown in me, he seemed enamoured by little more than my voice. We spoke for some time that morning.
Afterwards in my state of exhaustion afforded to me by my atrocious sleeping patterns I was to my surprise, resting a heavy head that was for once, painted with a smile. I was promised more conversations and fated a precious friendship. The days that followed were sprinkled with delightful exchanges and even early morning Disney soundtrack sing-alongs! I found it magical, almost liberating. I found something akin to salvation – and from what I shall elaborate upon soon enough, but let us just say I was at home when I ought to have been at University, because University had been less than it ought to have been, and I was feeling less than human; doing much worse than I ought to have been doing.
I quickly returned to University with this new addition to my Facebook rota and soon was began the sharing of YouTube links and tales of woe and wonderment. I had something new to watch, to read at last. More than that, I had a friend at last that would assemble his gazes and those ever-brighter smiles at the frontier of my despair and fight it off with his combatants in comedy.
You see, I have been very lonely for a very long time. I have been less than able for a very long time. I have been a severe and changeable fiend for as long my mind would will that I remember and an ocean of a man tortured and turned by torrents and winds of tantrums and woeful things. I had little hope in very little and I had not so long before all this, encircled someone else rather special to me in all the waves of my wayward moods. For this I am sorry and from this, I pray all concerned shall go on. I have no doubt it will be this way, but I hope that there won’t be quite as much wandering in the rain.
Breaking the storm however, was the sun. No matter how dark the night, dawn had come and sunshine fell through my window and into my life. He can’t hold me yet, but there is warmth of a kind in my knowing him, and knowing that he thinks of me. Not as a monster, not as a pitiable thing not even as a genius of any kin, but as the object of his infinite kindness that has been the subject of endless loss.
My dearest friend; like the sunshine you are, you come from afar but are warmer than the tears of the moon, and the flickering of night. You are bright and courageous, brave enough for the both of us, and I dare say that I have needed someone like you, for a very long time. I don’t know if this is much too sentimental; much too god-damn emotional than is befitting for the distance and familiarity between us, but I know only authenticity. I know that I may at last, know the light. I am blind only to the darkness now, and the memories of shadows that slowly recede however much they stalk my rear, because I turn to them and think of you.
I hope one day, I can stand with you against them, and never fall to their feet as you have fallen into my life. It must have been far, all the way from grace.
Thank-you my friend, you have made this a most memorable day and tainted though it is, I don’t fear audacity on my part to say this friendship is the cure.
Grazie.”
