When Things Fell Apart

I haven’t been blogging that much lately, and there’s a reason for that. Lots of them, actually. When I started blogging, it was all about being funny, making myself and other people laugh and recording the adventures I shared with my wonderful friends. And then just over a year ago, things started changing. I lost my job, my relationship came to an end, I moved from a big beautiful house to a one room not so beautiful place, could not find a job, had a number of potential projects fall through and I spent the better part of the year sliding in and out of a depression that was sometimes paralytic. Everything I thought I had and knew about my life fell completely apart in that time. There was nothing to rebuild or repair, I had to start all over again, from scratch. I thought I would go crazy. I cried a lot, the really-big-ugly-mascara-running-down-the-face-cry. I spent more time alone this past year than I probably have in the past decade. It was often all I could do just to get out of my bed in the morning, an at times I failed at that. I rarely had the energy to be funny or witty and I am sure for the people that were actually in my company, I have not been very much fun at all. Most of the outward fun that people saw was more smoke and mirrors than a true reflection of anything going on inside. I avoided responding to emails and messages on Facebook. I ignored SMSes from people and just tried to hide away. I wasn't trying to be rude, I just didn't know what to say.

I have had people tell me I should just write what is true, what is real, but the fact is, I didn’t want anyone to see. I was embarrassed. I also didn’t want people to worry, and the people that did know what was going on, I didn’t want them to worry more. I don’t know what depression is like for others, but for me it is a very dark and grim place, and when I do something I like to make sure I do it really well and over the top, even if it is not a good thing. There were times I didn’t think I would make it, but I did. I am.

Now things are coming around, improving and looking up. I have learned a lot about myself and people in the past year. Lessons I would probably never have personally chosen to have, but now that I feel I can actually start breathing again, I am grateful. The hardest thing I have learned is to ask for and accept help. It is not an easy thing for me. The prideful person in me would rather starve than ask someone for food. I was raised to be self-sufficient and independent, and while those are great qualities, I have learned they can also work against a person. I would not have made it through without the help from a few wonderful people who were there and a couple who even threatened to knock down my door and drag me out kicking and screaming if that is what it took. I won’t name them here as they would yell at me, but they have my gratitude and unconditional love. I hope I am more compassionate, more understanding and patient. I hope I am a better friend and better partner. I hope I am a better person.

Today, at this moment, I am feeling good. I am feeling more like myself, but like a self I never really knew before, or maybe I wasn’t before.

Slowly, I feel like laughing, really laughing.

Friendship 2.0

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems the more “connected” I am, the more out of touch I feel. I have my email, Google Talk, Facebook, Twitter, BriteKite, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, blog, etc., and the invitations to join new things come everyday. When I am not online, I have the appropriate application on my iPhone – I am always connected, always keeping everyone up to date with any little detail of my life. Just like most of my friends. I know where they are, where they are working, I see their pictures of holidays and weddings and children. On the surface, it seems great, amazing that it no longer matters if you live next door or on the opposite side of the planet, we are always there in each other’s lives, in the know about what is going on the moment it happens.

But are we?
Really?
I wonder...

I feel more disconnected from my friends than I ever did before. I have fallen into the trap of letting Facebook and my blog keep the people I care about up to date. I become lazy and passive in my friendships. I used to be the guy that picked up the phone and sent long personal emails and now it’s almost as if I can’t be bothered. I would worry if I hadn’t heard from someone for a couple of days. I used to take my time writing for just that one person who was on my mind, investing time and energy and now it seems I just broadcast my life for anyone that happens to stumble across my blog or Twitter. Friends I used to be so in touch with are the ones I feel so distant from.

I can’t remember the last time Nik and I exchanged an email. I read his updates, check out his pics on Facebook, I get the false sense of knowing what is going on with him, knowing where he “is” in life, but for some reason I don’t email him. I don’t even message him on Facebook. I don’t ask questions. I don’t dig deeper. I content myself with the snippets he chooses to post and I comment here and there. Comment. Is that what my friendships have become? A series of short and easy to overlook, easy to forget comments?

I feel more like a voyeur than a participant. And the crazy thing is, I have fallen into the same trap. I put up my pics, post my status updates and assume that everyone is up to date and participating in my life. Sometimes I post updates that I think should get a response from people and yet nothing comes. I get disappointed. But if my friends are like me, they get tons of updates every single day in Facebook alone. And then there is Twitter and the rest. Who can keep up?  I am not one of those people that collect people on Facebook. With only one exception, I have met and know every person in my friend list. I see their faces everyday on my screen, but some of them I haven’t exchanged a single message with for over a year. A year. They are just a click away and yet that too is becoming so far. These are people I would have sent an email to or phoned regularly. Ken, Christina, Marco, Nik, Joe, Laura and on and on the list goes.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Facebook and the rest are great at keeping everyone up to date. What scares me is that they seem to be replacing and redefining the relationship, making it less personal, more generic. I don’t want that to happen with my friends. I value my friends. I love my friends. We have seen each other through high school, relationships, children, careers, illness and death. We have shared cocktails and gossip, leaned on each other and pulled each other up. Ken, Ulco and Marco have at different times saved me, coming to my rescue at just the right moment, even if they didn’t know it at the time.

I like the snippets of life I see everyday about my friends. I just don’t like when I see the snippets replacing the real deal. So I am going to pick up the phone more. I am going to write more emails. I will get back onto Messenger and I am going to get my friendships back the way I need them to be. A lot more personal.

Dinner With Danielle

Last night I had dinner with the fabulous Danielle. We met about a month after I moved here and for me, it was love at first sight. She’s one of those amazing people that have lived in all over the place, speaks half the languages on the planet and everything she owns has a story. I am currently looking for a comfy bed, something I am having a difficulty finding in India. I asked her about her bed, which looked amazingly comfy as I was wandering through the house waiting for her to put on the finishing touches for dinner. The response began “When I was in Bogota…” Then I eyed the amazing carved tortoise on her floor and after I commented the response began “When I was living in Jamaica…”

While I have known Danielle probably longer than I have known anyone else here in India, she and I have never really done anything that was just the two of us. There is always Anjali or Chris and Poul, or Stephen and Pierre or all of the above. Not that it is a complaint in any way, it has been a few months since all of us were together and I could really use a dose of all of them. It was just an odd revelation for me that we hadn’t spent any alone time and it was really great just having her all to myself for those few hours.