Friendship

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival."
- C. S. Lewis

Perhaps it's because I went through a lot of my earlier life without many friends, maybe it's because of what I've been through in which my friends have literally been life-savers, or maybe it's because I've read way too much Harry Potter, but friendship has always been the most essential thing to me.

I'm not talking about "eh, I don't have much better to do, so I'm going to look through my contacts list and see who will watch a movie with me tonight", or "I could use someone to keep me awake while I study", but actual, tried-and-true, bonds of love between two human beings that make them valuable peices of each other's lives.

Today's society (and I mean not just the media, but the people by whom I am surrounded) seems to be slowly depreciating good, solid friendships. It's hard to find popular stories these days that aren't about romance, and I've often found myself seconded to the significant others of my friends, only to have our time together re-discovered after said relationship's unfortunately dramatic demise.

I'm not saying that I'm not a fan of relationships. I love mine extensively, for many reasons. However, it will never take precedence over the close-knit friendships that I have accumulated and find immensely precious. Breakups stab, but the loss of a friend, I've found, aches for so much longer.

With this importance as a preamble, I would like to take this time to divulge what I see in the ideal friend. This model is the kind of friends I hope to have, and the kind of friend I am always striving to be.

Friends are two people who find each other to be valuable parts of their lives, and who strive to make sure the other friend knows it. A friend isn't somebody who finds you valuable for what you have to offer, but for who you are. A friend will take time with you, not just upon first getting to know you, but as you grow and change together, to understand who you are. A friend will listen intently, and learn how you think, what you value, and what your dreams are.

If a friend truly finds you valuable as a person, said friend will listen to your opinion on matters and really consider it. A friend believes that you are a credible resource. A friend is someone whom you teach and simultaneously from whom you learn.

What you find important, your friend will also find important because you do. If you are a peace activist, your friend will express excitement when you share news about your cause. If you are really into a musician, your friend will stand in line with you to get tickets when said musician comes to town. If you devote your life to playing a sport, your friend will be at your games cheering you on, or at least ask how they went afterward. You must also take the time to find out what your friend values, and if you care about your friend, these things will be valuable to you as well, because your friend's happiness will be as important to you as your own.

A friend knows your dreams, and will go out of hir way to help you achieve them.

A friend will listen to you singing your heart-song, memorize it, and sing it back to you when you forget the words.

A friend will strive to remind you that you are important to hir, and to the world. Simple things like helping you with your chores, making you a card, giving you a hug just for the sake of being close, sending a text-message or *gasp* actually calling you on the telephone to remind you why you are special, or taking time out of a particularly busy week to spend time with you, even if it's just for a short time, can really make a friendship last.

A friend is someone with whom you can be yourself. Everyone has a "force feild" that ze puts on when out in public. This is the reserve you show in portraying your deep-set emotions. A friend doesn't judge, but in fact encourages you to share your real, true, raw self with hir. A true friend will also open up with you and tell you what is on hir heart. Friends don't hide things from one another.

When you are dealing with something difficult, your friend is there, not to fix the problem, but to take care of you and your feelings. As Sam said to Frodo in one of the most beautiful friendships literature has to offer, "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you." Some of the people who have remained my friends through the test of time are people who have held me while I cried. There are some things in life that only friends can get us through.

Lastly, the most important words in a good friendship are, "How insightful!", "How was your day?", "I believe in you," "Thank you," and "I love you." They should all be spoken, ideally, once a week.

My Favorite Time

I think my favorite thing to do is to get up too early for something, get completely ready, and go downtown with nowhere to be for about two hours. I'll just get a cup of coffee, sit outside, and watch the city walk past. People/bird watching is my kind of meditation. (Well, okay, the coffee helps, too.) Some talk on cell phones, some to each other, and some to themselves. I can see peacefulness in an elderly woman or harriedness in a buisness-dressed man. Some check their watches. Some notice the same birds that I do. Some look at me. I always smile, and I usually get a smile back. I regain hope in humanity when people will take the time to smile at a total stranger. Mainly I just soak in the town and myself through the solidarity of the expirience. If it's rainig, (as it often is in the Valley) I watch people rushing to get out of the rain, I watch people accepting that the rain is there, and I watch the people who celebrate the fact that they can feel rain on their faces. I become still and present. Every now and again, I'll see the same person on more than one occasion, and I'll smile and get a cordially curt nod of recognition. This non-spoken bond of friendship based solely around the fact that we both enjoy downtown mornings is what makes me love living in a small town. Afterward, I usually explore a local bookstore or the public library. I'll never find anything as rewarding or as cheerful as a room full of books.

I suppose this is just a status update.

So, if you're not blind, you've noticed that I've given my page a makeover. Feedback on it's appearance and easiness to read are much appreciated. (You know you want to. You are on the internet, heck, you're a human being, ergo, you have SOMETHING to say.)

Tonight was my last meeting with my college Christain group for the school year. Looking back on how much I've learned this year and how much my friends there mean to me, I'm starting to feel happy about being here for another year. Perhaps I'm not a step closer to my dream of becoming a youth pastor, perhaps I am. Who knows what God has in store?


A really dear friend just gave me some prints of our most recent photoshoot. They're astonishing! I'm beginning to feel so confident as a model, and it does my self-esteem well to be excelling at something.

I've been having especially weird dreams lately, having to do with weddings, carcinogens, musical theater, and octopi. (Octopus? Octopotes?) I've also dreamed about being pregnant three times over the last two weeks. Dream theory says that means I feel about to create something special. I hope that's true. I feel as though I could be productive if given an outlet. Maybe I'll paint something.

I am very much feeling growth and change, but very much am still afraid, and am still stifled by my need to cater to old friends who take advantage of me and don't value me for who I really am. Sometimes I wonder if some of my friends realize how hard I go out of my way all the time to make sure they're okay. I wonder if they did, would they be more likely to send a text every once in a while saying, "How's it going?". I guess I just become old news and slip under the radar sometimes. I really should learn to speak up for myself.

I remember dreaming of the symbol of the basket, loaves, and fish. Very cleary, I need to remember that God will provide for me. (Even though I'm currently struggling to make rent and my car was just totaled by a stranger.)

Anyway, that's what's on Kaylie's mind today.

My Wildest Dreams

Right now, my most ridiculous fantasies exist of someone telling me, "Thanks, Kaylie, you really helped me out a lot."

The Most Imortant Thing I'll Ever Write

I heard the word of Christ when I was a child. I was a Veggie-Tales-watching-Sunday-School kid, but I rebelled inside against a God I thought to be cruel and neglectful. It wasn't until I lost every other source of hope I had that I finally turned to God and asked,
"If you're there, I need you,"
and He showed me immediately to Romans 5:1-5
"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."
Words that stood out to me were "peace" and "rejoice". They were a foreign language to me, but I needed them, so I said,
"Okay, Lord, come in and see what you can do."
He did so much. My life has since thrown so much baggage at me, but He stays faithful, and through diving into His word, He has given me hoe and courage to pull through, and has turned me into the woman I am today. I can't imagine myself without Him. His is the love that will never leave.
Because Jesus has been my savior, and because He has been so faithful to me, I have been given a heart full to the brim with love, and He has asked me to share it. I want to give everyone I know the chance to get to know Him, and have decided to no longer live passively when it comes to sharing His salvation. I have realized that praying for people isn't enough; that I need to speak up! I believe in Heaven and Hell. I believe in a God that offers love and peace to everyone. Honestly, how badly would I have to hate someone not to share it?

The Older I Get

It's funny to me how when I lived at home, all I wanted to do was get away from my family and be on my own. Now, the longer ago that time becomes, the more all I wish to do is have more time to go home and be with them. I went home for Mother's Day yesterday and my family went to dinner and played games. I can honestly say it was a wonderful time. I don't know what it is, exactly, the way my Mom tells generic off-color jokes as though they are the most hysterical thing to exist on the planet, the familiarity of her bickering with my little sister, my stepdad's randomly interspersed advice, or the way my little brother just sits back and makes his own commentary on all of it as though he is a comedian observing a 1990's drama. We've always been a strange bunch. Stranger than strange. For the longest time when I was a kid, I believed, thanks to my Dad, that my sister and I came from what he called the MUBF - the Messed-Up Baby Factory, and that we were the end result of genetic engineering gone horribly wrong. Spaghetti night meant we ate naked. On Christmas, we sing "Check the balls on my big collie, fa-la-la-la-la..." We clean the kitchen floor by "ice skating" on it with soapy sponges tied to our feet. Whenever somebody burps, ze must never say "excuse me", but shout "OUCH!". Farts warrant a "Frapow!" Everyone has nicknamed me "meat-flinging-boob" for as long as I can remember, and acceptable dinner conversation includes, but is not limited to: making fun of redheads, the size of our dog's erection in comparison to a hot dog, cannibalism, and the fact that there are probably life forms in outer space. It was enough to drive a self-proclaimed intellectually superior teenager insane. Now, every time I go home, I don't want to leave. I'm starting to realize, too late, just how important family is. The further away I get from the place I belonged, the more I understand how crucial having a home is. Maybe this realization is what makes people eventually settle down and reproduce. That's a frightening thought. Being an adult is hard.

This was my whole term.

The Silver-Studded Hello

She had walked in with that no-nonsense gait and her usual lip-buzzing sigh.

"Hello!" I'd said, completely unsure as to why I had said it. I believe that my tongue was forced to move by the secret powers hidden within its new painfully acquired piercing.
She'd just stared. Well, why shouldn't she have stared? Here was the strange Dungeons and Dragons guy who came into her workplace, the Starbucks closest to campus, every day and never spoke suddenly saying hello with a slight lisp due to a new metal ball that he sported with uncool pride. Hell, I'd stare at that, and I am someone who cannot make eye contact for more than five seconds.
“Mary.” That was what the indents of the white plastic rectangle pinned over her pert bosom told me of her. The rest, I inferred myself. I inferred that she was exactly the kind of woman with whom I'd want to take a long walk. I also inferred that she'd rather die.

Every day since I'd seen her for the first time four months ago, I'd found my table in the back of the shop and watched her to learn more. Some days she would chat endlessly with customers, usually ones older than her, about philosophy, the weather, Charlie Chaplin, anything really. Some days she'd almost rudely shun anyone who tried to spark a conversation.

The more I'd watched her, the more I'd been haunted by the mystery of her mouth. I'm not saying I'd never thought about what it might be like to kiss that mouth, but the mystery of which I speak is the fact that those red-painted lips never curled in a smile. Ever.

I don't know what I had been thinking when I got the piercing. From the first time I saw her long black and purple hair flick across her shoulder as she handed me my vanilla-hazelnut steamer, all I knew was that I had to do something. I couldn't just continue my cowardly existence. Luckily, one of her co-workers, Darryl, noticed me at the rear-corner table and took interest in my newest troll miniature. After explaining to him the premise of my campaign and consequently impressing him, I asked him about her.

“Mary? She's a strange one. Bipolar or something. We started out as friends, but she randomly shut me out one day and hasn't talked to me since. She's like that with most people from what I've gathered. It's like she's completely set on disconnecting with life.”

I asked if she had a boyfriend. He laughed.

“Hardly! I'm pretty sure she'd bite anyone who got near. Good luck if you want to go for her. I doubt you'd stand a chance, anyway; I'm pretty sure she only likes punk guys.”
So, the next thing I knew I walked into an inappropriately dark and smokey shop and signed a release waiver saying essentially that if I died, it wouldn't be their fault. Shortly thereafter, a big, surly, grey-bearded man with arms covered in naked-mermaid tattoos was strutting out and saying in a gruff voice, "I hear you're wanting a piercing!" His smile mocked me. Here goes something, I thought. I followed him into a back room which appeared to be sound-proofed and sat in a leather chair, pondering whether or not this man's tattoos were acquired in prison. "Stick'er out!" tat-man ordered. I obeyed and too-late closed my eyes after catching a glimpse of a needle thick enough to give Shamu his shots. Her shots? I don't know. Why was I even thinking about a stupid whale when I was about to be skewered by Dog the Bounty Hunter?
Sweating waterfalls, I'm sure, I whimpered, "Is it too late to back out?"
"Son, I've had one fella' back out of this chair in my thirty years of doing this, and he was nine."
That wasn't exactly encouraging, but I began to struggle for a means of courage. So, shivering, I thought to myself, what would Sephiroth do? Needless to say, I stuck my tongue out again, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and with a squishy jolt of pain, became a warrior with a hidden power: a warrior with one mission, to say “Hello” to Mary. Besides, I only cried for ten minutes.
Still, once I'd actually verbally connected with the girl, there was only that blank stare from those cool blue eyes.
"Uh, that's all I got," I'd explained pathetically.
Dejectedly, I had been about to book it out of there before those gorgeous eyes shot lasers through my heart, when the most miraculous thing I could have ever asked for occurred.
There it was! Her lip slowly began to curve! In that magical moment, what only I could recognize as a smile was born across those angelic lips.
It was fleeting, gone in a moment, and replaced by her usual blank mien, and then the lips parted to say, "My shift hasn't started yet, but I'll get your usual once I get behind the counter," with the same intonation she would have used had she said, "I'll scrape the bunions from that elephant as soon as I'm done shoveling dog crap," and she turned away.
Then, however, that shiny hair had flown from one shoulder to the other as she once again turned her face to me.
"Oh," she had said with an almost-smirk, "and hi."

Three days later, I stood outside the door, waiting. I knew she was coming. Her shift ended at this time every day, and she never stayed late. I leaned my elbow casually against the wall. I knew this was how to show I was “hanging out.” As far as anyone watching was concerned, I was just passing time there. As far as she was concerned, well, I won't dare to hope that she didn't find me pathetic.

It had been three days because that's how long it took me to get up the nerve to go near her again. I didn't know why I was there, didn't know what I would say once her shift ended, when she would walk out of those doors looking like a fallen angel with a stone face. All I knew was that there wasn't anywhere else for me to be. I mean, I still had a few unresolved quests on Dragon Age, and it'd been a while since I'd re-watched Firefly, but what I mean was that I felt I needed to be leaning against this brick wall and that if I were to do anything else, I wouldn't be able to focus. Being here meant that I would see her. Unfortunately, that also meant that she would see me.

Every once in a while I would see that purple-black hair through the window for just a moment, and my epiglottis would heave.

I heard her before I saw her; the clomp-clomp of her feet clad more in buckles than in actual black boots. The boots grounded a slender body clad in every garish color I knew existed. Never before her had I seen so many colors on one person, yet they were all perfectly in place and still shrouded in darkness by her leather jacket and black jolly roger tattoo.

I started thinking about what I knew about this girl. Didn't that whole “rebel-without-a-cause” thing end with high school? Why did she still feel compelled to dress like a Norwegian rock star? Did she play an instrument? Did she like coffee? Why was she working? On what did she spend her earnings? Was she a student? I'd never seen her around campus. Was she actually a lot older than she looked behind that thick makeup? Had she graduated? Why then, would she be working in a coffee shop?

I saw her step out. The door swung behind her, her hot pink skirt swung in front of it, and her vision swung to me. My mouth went dry.

“You again?” She almost showed surprise.

“Uhh...yeah.” I replied.

She started to walk toward the parking lot.

I reached toward her hand, then thought better, pulled it back and said, “Wait.”

She turned around as though she already knew what was going to happen next. Her expectation stimulated the magic metal ball in my mouth to move. “I want to take you on a walk sometime,” I stated plainly.

Cringing, I waited for the worst.

“Oh?” She said.

I nodded helplessly.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” I was so stunned that I forgot to be afraid of the awkward pause that followed.

“So...call me,” she said, pulling a pen from her pocket and scribbling 657-2898 on my arm in helvetica script.

I waited two and a half days after that to call her as cooldate.com suggested. I had to dial a wrong number first, as I'd showered and couldn't tell if the fourth number was a 2 or a 6.

She answered as though she'd done nothing but answer the phone all day.

“Hello, this is Mary.”

Only then did I realize that I hadn't told her my name. What was I supposed to say? Hi, this is the creeper you scribbled your digits on, the one who wants to make you smile every day and wonders what your hair smells like?

“Um...hi,” I said. I could feel her reaching for the end-call button. “You said you'd take a walk with me. My name is Cole.”

“Oh, yeah. Tongue-ring guy.” I couldn't help but grin.

I was surprised, on the night of our meeting, that she was on time. When I got to the light post at the end of Campus Avenue, she was already standing there, slumped against it and looking in the opposite direction as me.

“Hi,” I said.

“Yo.”

We didn't say anything after that, but began walking. Two blocks later we were still walking in total silence. If I didn't break it soon, I'd have blown it for good. Her eyes kept shifting from the sky to the ground and back again. They went to the birds in the air, to the buds on the bushes, to the cracks in the sidewalk, anywhere but onto me. Desperately, I searched our surroundings for anything to talk about. The only thing in sight was a small playground, completely deserted for the night by all the kids who where in bed by now.

“Do you ever wish you could just be a kid again?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes onto me. “Sure...?”

“I really miss swinging,” I said, and her empty stare made my “fight or flight” response switch to “flight”. Hands spread out like a bad cartoon airplane, I ran to the swing set and uncomfortably squeezed into the seat. I didn't look back so as not to lose my nerve. Instead, I began to pump my legs. The world blew by for a second and I felt like the speed of my heartbeat could make me take off, like I could fly away from being so embarrassed. I knew I was acting insanely, but I also knew that she wouldn't be here if I'd not acted insanely in the first place.

Suddenly, I heard something rattle beside me. I looked over to see a blur of black and purple, and heard a strange, diaphragm-rich laugh. All at once it was both the last thing I expected and exactly the right and only thing that could have happened.

She threw her head back and let that hair drag on the ground when she went down; when she went up her boots flew on their own to brush the trees wildly.

Once she started laughing, it was as though the dam over her inner life had broken and she seemed physically unable to stop. This was quite possibly the strangest and most beautiful moment I'd ever experienced.

Her swing stopped, her body doubled over as the laughter poured forth. Her arms crossed over her stomach and she quivered in a sequence of odd convulsions.

After a time, she finally regained composure and looked at me, puzzled. Without a word, she then got up to continue walking.

Questions I asked her then, oh so many questions, as we walked below the grey night sky. She had always wanted to work in a coffee shop, but Starbucks was her last resort, due to her distaste for the flavor of their espresso beans. She was a sophomore business major, and she had no idea why, because she didn't plan on finishing college. She lived in a studio with her two gerbils named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and ate mainly rice and pasta, though when she had extra cash she was a sucker for macaroons. She used to sing in a band before their drummer, her best friend, moved away to Reno and became a prostitute. She grew up in her parent's house two hours from campus. She liked aquariums. She knit.

Finally, she broke up my questions with one of her own. This is what I was afraid of, but since girls can smell fear, she started me off with a basic one. “What do you do for fun?” Easy enough.

I began to ramble. “Well, I really spend most of my time working on stories for my D&D – er - Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I'm the DM – er – dungeon master. That means I come up with the stories and scenarios that everyone plays through. I control the characters that aren't being played. I decide what monsters they fight. I design the dungeons for them to get lost in. I hide the treasure.”

“You like having the control?”

Her question threw me off. “Uh, I guess so. Mostly I like knowing all the cards. A story is more fun when you already know what's going to happen. It's like Superman; you know he's going to save the day, so you can just sit back and enjoy.

“You don't like bad to happen?”

“Not quite. I mean, it's the same for a zombie thriller. You already know everyone's going to die, so you don't get attached to them.”

Her eyes turned dark.

“So not like real life,” she stated.

“Huh?”

“In reality nobody knows who's going to leave or when. People get pulled along, and anyone or everything could be destroyed in a matter of moments with no warning. We can never just sit back and enjoy without fear of the next tragedy. So, you're an escapist.”

“Uh...I guess so. Why live in reality when you don't have to?”

“That's a damn good question.” She paused a moment, as if deciding something. “I like you,” she stated matter-of-factually. “You're interesting.”

I would have responded, but we were walking up to a small studio complex and she said “That one's mine,” so I walked her to her door.

“I still can't believe tonight just happened,” I admitted. “I've never had such a good time with anyone!” I meant, it, too.

Suddenly, the light in her eyes started to change. The entire density of the air warped and thickened. The fun, the joy, and the restraint simultaneously drained from her face and was replaced with a beautiful and terrible expression that I had never seen anywhere before.

Before I knew what was happening, she was kissing me. It was unbelievable, and by unbelievable, I mean I still can't believe it occurred. I mean, sure, I'd kissed before. Awkward times in high school my lips had curled over braces to create the then-beautiful moments that disgusted underpaid hall monitors. After senior prom, I'd gotten a look down Peggy Shriton's green taffeta gown before she'd tipped up my chin with her home-manicured hand and let me smell her mom's perfume mingled with department store makeup before gracing me with a glossy smooch that was over far too fast for my hormone-frenzied pubescent mind to process. This, however, was something I never dreamed I'd feel. When she braced that magnificent chest against mine with her firm hands and pressed her face so close to mine, when her heavy boots nudged my sneakers so encouragingly, when those once expressionless lips expressed such passion against mine, when I thought the kiss to be over and pulled away and she pressed in again, and when I moved my hand up her back and she let out the smallest whimper, the extreme reality of the moment couldn't convince me that it was real. It was simply impossible. The magic silver pulled my tongue between her lips, and when it clicked against the back of her teeth, her body shuddered and her hands clutched my body the way a baby's hands first clutch it's mother's fingers. She let a deeper moan escape, and her hands got lost in my hair. It was magic tenth level wizards only dreamed about.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. When she looked at me this time, however, her smile was nowhere to be found.

“That was nice,” she said.

“See you later?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said flatly, and she went inside, and she shut the door.

She wasn't at work on Monday. Calling her phone number warranted only a “We're sorry; the number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. Please hang up and try your call again.” I didn't know where she went, why she hadn't told me she was leaving, or why I couldn't contact her. All I knew was that she was gone without a trace.

I waited, always praying that she was somewhere attempting to reach me somehow. I fabricated all kinds of ideas, from her having a flight of fancy and eloping with her next-door neighbor to her being kidnapped by ninjas. After just a few days, it was becoming hard for me to believe that she'd even been real. She had vanished as if she were a very strange dream.

After a week, I asked Darryl if she had quit. His eyes softened, and he said, “Mary? She died late last Friday night. Killed herself. I'm so sorry.”

I would have thrown up, but there seemed to be a C-clamp secured around my esophagus. The room slanted to a dutch tilt and my existence fled for a moment before I could muster out a “thank you.”

I made my way home in a daze and turned on my computer. When I typed her name in the search bar, the first result was her obituary from last week's newspaper. With the words chosen for her, she could have been anybody. Only the face was familiar in the black-and-white high school senior pic of her with a copy of Lord of the Flies resting in her crossed arms on her chest. “Mary Jean McCauly. 1989-2012. Well loved by her family and friends. Great student. Beautiful smile. She will be dearly missed.” A block of ice settled into my stomach, and I'm working on how to melt it to this day.

For all I know, nobody knows that she even knew me. For all I know, the time she spent with me didn't make any difference to her whatsoever. All I know is that I'll never forget how I made that girl smile, and that if I had waited one more week to say “Hello,” I'd never have known that I could. I'm keeping this metal in my mouth to remind me of this, and to give me the courage to someday say “hello” again.