Infected

**Photo by Simon Rogers**


I've been sick with a sinus infection since Saturday and haven't gotten a chance to write. Actually, I haven't gotten a chance to do much of anything but sleep. Slowly the antibiotics are starting to take effect.

I had assumed that it was a cold that would go away on its own, that time would heal everything, that there was no reason to seek help. I had assumed that, like most things in my life, I could handle it. I could take care of myself. I could curl up and hide away from the world. I could become rejuvenated within the comfortably quiet rooms of my apartment. I could hibernate.

But when I awoke on day three and felt no better, I called my mother. I needed a ride to the doctors, but later, waiting by the door for her to arrive, I realized that I needed more than that. I needed to feel taken care of. I needed to BE taken care of. I needed to be beside someone who loved me even at my worst. Waiting by the door for her to arrive, I did not feel like a woman waiting for her friend. I felt like a little girl waiting for her mom.

It's been a while since I've felt that way. Not because I don't love my mother, not because she isn't my friend, but because she is. Because more and more I've thought of her as a friend, because less and less I've needed her as a mother. Which I suppose is just part of growing up. She's taught me well. She's taught me how to be independent. She's taught me how to survive. She's taught me how to exist without her, a kind of bittersweet, selfless lesson that only parents can teach. It's a difficult feeling, to both want to be needed and to want to be certain that things can continue on without you. So much depends on our little lives.

I've been thinking about you lately and what our ten years of friendship has meant. There have been times when I have loved you more than I thought it was possible to love, times when I carried you within the routine of my daily life, the curves of my smile, the depths of my heart. There were times when I was sure that to not see you each day would be the end of me, of us, of the bond we had devoted such endless effort to building. There were times when I was sure that we had grown apart, when we were both happy, when we didn't depend on one another in quite the same way. There were times when I was sure that we would never, could never, return to what we once were.

But there have also been times, particularly lately, when I have felt that renewed sense of love for you. Not because I need something from you, not because I am dependent on you, but because simply to hear from you brings me joy. Because to know that we will always be friends means more to me than anything. Because to know that we are not finished building our bond gives me hope for the future, for our future, for our friendship.

Perhaps we can never return to what we once were, but instead we choose to move forward, past the drama, past the points of doubt, past the places where it would have felt comfortable to let each other go. Instead we have chosen to hold on. Instead we have chosen to put faith in us. I am grateful we have made such a choice.

I only mention it because before I picked up the phone to call my mother, I considered calling you. I considered you to be someone who could love me at my worst. I consider that a true testament of what we have. I consider my life incomplete without you.

And I consider that to be everything.