Losing Friends
I may have mentioned along the way that I have moved primary residence twenty-three times in my life. That averages to a tad more than two years in a residence. While that average appropriately characterizes my high level of movement over my life, the three longest stays in one place were nine years in the South Street Seaport (where I met Kim), seven years on Canterbury Road in Rockville Centre (where my two oldest children were born), six years on Union Square (where my third child was born), and five years in Ithaca (where my mind and my career were born). That logically means that there are six stops along the way that were shorter than two years and remaining thirteen where I stayed two or three years. The point is that I have moved a lot and only set down roots in a few places. The “meaningful” places I have lived have been NYC, Long Island, Ithaca, Rome, Maine, Wisconsin and Latin America (If I had to add another I would add California even though that trek has just begun). Each of those places have formed a part of the quilt that is who I am. That represents a blend of urban, suburban and rural. They are domestic and international and within the domestic, East Coast, Midwest and West Coast. That is as much a diverse geographical and cultural amalgam as one can suggest.
Speech is often a good tell of one’s heritage. My speech is hard for people to parse and discern for the very reason that there are bits of Spanish intonation, Midwestern twang, Noreaster lilt, Italiante, Ithaca earthiness, and even a bit of New Yawker and Longg Eyeland. I am as comfortable in shorts and t-shirt as I am in a $2,000 suit or tuxedo. I have more Allen Edmonds welted broughams and more plastic Crocs than any other type of shoes. I have worn my hair long and fly-away and short and close to crew cut. I have had pork chop sideburns, been clean shaven most of the time and have sported a closely-cropped beard on and off for the last twenty years. I have voted for two Republican presidents, but have mostly been a flaming liberal most of my life. I am numerate and business-focused (with all the hard-bitten realism that goes with that) and yet I am more artistic and design-oriented than most men and many women. I am a hard guy to stereotype and I suppose that’s the way I like it.
When you move as much and morph as much as I have, you have a diverse gathering of friends that have come and gone throughout my life. Moving does cause you to triage friendships more so than if you stay put. I have often said that some friendships are more like family in that eventually they become less a choice than a matter of history. That is less the case when you come and then go. You have more discretion in who you choose to stay in touch with. Age matters, I suspect mostly by virtue of the development stage of your character. I have retained no friendships from Latin America, Wisconsin, Maine and all the places prior to high school age. My older sister is still friendly with people from Maine, probably because she was older by three years. I have kept two close friends and one acquaintance from Rome, where, in all fairness, I was in a relatively small subset of expatriates. My second sister (18 months my senior) is married to a man who she met in high school in Rome. My active friend network really starts in earnest in college and business school and then builds more on the basis of my workplace experiences than anything. My first ex-wife’s deeply seated friendships are all people from her initial baby playgroup and who live in the same community in which she still lives. Those are somewhat normal bases for friendships.
The less typical friendships I enjoy have come from my twenty-five year motorcycle group, my wife Kim’s theater and cabaret crowd and few select neighbors from primary and secondary residences. For example, Frank & Loretta, who I met in a neighboring condo in Utah and who became ski buddies, and Gary & Oswaldo who huddled with us next door in Staten Island and now remind ourselves that we all survived that episode. In the early days of our marriage, Kim and I would always throw a New Years party and invite a broad swath of friends. One of Kim’s friends asked why there were mostly Kim’s friends at the party versus mine. The temptation was to say that Kim is a nicer person (which she is) and that I had no friends, but the truth was even funnier in saying that my friends all had vacation homes to go to where Kim’s friends were all looking for a free drink on New Years. Her friends are almost all people she was in shows with or people she sings with (and a few thrown in that she taught with about theater and song).
What caused me to start this piece was some random thoughts about how friends come and go in our lives. My best record of the coming and goings would be my Christmas Card list (Holiday Card list to be politically correct, but filed under “Christmas Card List”). I have a list of about 130 (down from 150 two years ago) of which let’s say family and obligatory cards represent perhaps at most 30. That leaves a core of 100 friends, but there are perhaps another 20 that should be added to that list that represent Kim’s friends who get our joint card from her. Many of these friends of hers have become dear friends to me as well. I don’t expect that any of our collective friends will ever have to decided between us, but if they did I have no illusions that her 20 would remain her 20 and my 100 would probably see defection of about half to join her team. I accept that reality.
Nevertheless, every year I find that I am paring my list like over the past two years by some 10% on the high side. I use a percentage rather than an absolute number because that more accurately reflects the attrition. It will never drop to zero, but will rather approach zero asymptotically. Such is the infinite and enduring nature of some friendships. The other day, I called one of my high school friends who relayed a discussion he had with his daughter. She had questioned why he had no friends and he had said, “What about Rich, he’s my friend”. I hadn’t spoken to him in a year and that was when I had again called him. He is on my Christmas Card list, but I don’t think he even has such a list. Everyone’s need for friends is different.
I work hard to retain my friendships by making a point of reaching out and I am always pleased when people acknowledge that tendency toward staying connected. Some also suggest that I help them keep up with other friendships that would otherwise fade into the background. At this stage of life, I hate to lose friends. It is more and more likely that friends will die. I had a good friend recently die and it reminded me of the importance of keeping those linkages refreshed and current. Nature will thin the herd of our friendships enough all by itself and on an increasing basis for the next twenty years. I can live with losing friends that way as it is the natural course, but I refuse to lose friends out of choice or indifference even if distance and things like politics these days occasionally causes us to question that likelihood. Losing friends just sucks too much.