THE UNDERRATED VALUE OF FRIENDSHIPS THAT HEAL AND THE ART OF BEING SINGLE

The beginning of May never changes for me and I am never the same after it makes its passage through the year. Every May is Mother’s Day and my Dad’s Birthday and every May starts out feeling like an emotional evisceration. This year was no exception and it started out with a very difficult conversation I had with my Dad, whom I’m estranged from for several years now. Not only did the conversation not go the way I was hoping, but it also left me with more than I had hoped to achieve from it.

I had asked my Dad how he wanted to be remembered and it saddened me when he couldn’t think of an answer. Many things about the conversation bothered me for days, but I’m determined to put an end to month of May’s torment. I decided to start with the part of our conversation that made me the saddest and in it, I found the start of what I needed. His lack of an answer gave me freedom. His denials and lack of answers to a lot of things ended up setting me free in a lot of ways. But, the saddest one of all was where I found the switch to turn the lights on.

I negotiated with my feelings and decided, I would be the one to determine how he’ll be remembered in a way that will allow me to live without so much pain. It was one of those messages you send and then fear the response. I asked him if I could have, not borrow, one of his fishing poles and some of his gear….. to remember him. I thought maybe he’d say those were things an angler must accumulate on their own, or something to that effect, or just plain, “No”. A few hours later, he texted back, “okay”. A couple days after that, he swung by our place and dropped off not one, but 3 really nice poles with 3 really nice reels and a fanny pack full of goodies for leaders and gear that will come in very useful for river fishing, which I love to do. The amount of gear he dropped off was 100 times more than I had before, but put an unnoticeable dent in his stash he’s collected over the past 50 years. I thanked him from the spirit of hope, from that place within me that I’m trying to let go of, that girl that never stopped needing a Dad, the one that hurts all the time. I tried to engage him in a conversation of perhaps making plans to fish together…… no response. The silent understanding that this gear is a goodbye from my Dad that wants nothing to do with me.

The beauty of it all is this… Many people don’t get a good bye, even from the most loving parents. And the ones that do get a goodbye, rarely get a say in how it happens, or what they want from it. In a way, we both got to do this one thing on our own terms, or at least were able to come to terms. I get to choose to let it break my heart more, or heal. I choose to heal and consider myself incredibly fortunate and grateful for all of it. He could die tomorrow and all the money and fortune and all the gear and the boat that fill his giant garage will never exceed in value of what he gave to me while he was still alive. And that too has helped with my choice of how I will remember him. I also believe the comfort it provides will be exponential in the years to come in an uncertain world.

The gear was filthy from sitting in his enormous garage for years from lack of use. I washed everything and oiled up the reels. In the process, I was dusting off the girl that needed a Dad, too. Got her back on her feet and stuffed her guts back into her body cavity, in hopes they won’t get ripped out next year. Then I sent out a message to make plans to go fishing to someone who answered back, “Yes, I can get the day off, let’s go.”

There are very few things about adulting that I enjoy, but the tradeoff is the relationships formed through life’s brutal lessons and shared journeys to hell and back again. The best part of those are the people you meet on your way back up to the surface from such events and my fishing buddy is no exception. My friend Shaun has never been granted any exemption from life’s lessons and we met a few years ago on one of those ascensions from hell. It’s in those moments and those kinds of friends, you never want to lose, if you’re lucky enough to find them. I consider myself to be very abundant in terms of having these people in my life.

I’ve been single for a little over a year now and it amazes me how so many men don’t have friends. I’m amazed at how many adults are out there wanting to either be possessed, or possess someone like property. For whatever reason, no matter their financial and material success, they can’t keep friends or have a healthy nurturing relationship. It’s so weird how some adults just don’t know what to do with themselves if their identities aren’t defined by someone else. Personally, I have no desire to ever be married again.

From the outside, I think I do a fairly good job of making it look like I’m pulling off the whole Independent single Mom thing, but it’s only because I’ve mastered over compensation out of a desire to survive. Most days, I’m a clueless mess, nonlinear free spirit that would otherwise blow away in the wind if not for friends that love me when I can’t love myself. I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the times Shaun has come to my rescue since we became friends. Everything from helping repair things in my home, helping me clean out my car after it was broken into, because it was too upsetting to face alone, to picking me up from the hospital…. I lean on him for a lot and last week when we went fishing, was another one of those moments.

I don’t think I’ve slept more than an hour at a time this whole month and we need to move and things are super tight and I feel like a total failure right now. I decided to let go of things I couldn’t control for just one day. I packed up my new to me fishing gear and all the emotions attached to it and packed us a worthy lunch and decided to make the most of our fishing plans.

For those of you that fish, you know that fishing plans, rarely go as planned. Our first stop and most ambitious plan to limit out on kokanee at Riffe Lake was a total bust. The wind and rain blew and beat on us as if to say, “Get lost” and so we eventually did, but not before giving it our best effort. The next stop was Ohop and it was crowded with city folks and all the non-mud holes along the bank were taken. Our third stop, albeit covered in trash, made up for the other two. Getting used to the feel of my new gear was cathartic and not getting skunked gave me faith that my new hat may in fact, be a lucky fishing hat, after all.

There are privileges to being older and single that aren’t really talked about. Asking for help is supposed to be a strength, not a weakness. Last week, I had Shaun take the driver’s seat literally and figuratively. We’re getting ready to move out of state and along with many other emotions, I’m also having separation anxiety when I think about not having Shaun close. My ONLY comforting thought is knowing I’m going to be with other people just like him that also have our backs.

This world is debatably a really scary place right now and I know for myself, our little orbit is upside down and it feels like my kids and I are flying around by the seat of our pants. This trip was supposed to be about remembering someone, but I realized that is going to require years of taking good care and making good use of the gear that was given to me. In the meantime, I was reminded of the great fortune of enjoying people and not things. I was reminded of how I want to be remembered and the memories I want to take in my heart when it’s my time to go. Before we are a gender, or an age, or political affiliation, or even human, we are spirit. I believe we have many soulmates and this is just one moment of many, with one of mine.