Dear Jasmine #20: The Patience to Build an Ancient Friendship
"You’re never fully alone even when you think so. Someone, somewhere recognises the shape of your heart."
Question #20a
Dear Jasmine,
My whole question revolves around the aspect of trust. It's like there are times when I feel that trust isn’t all that worthwhile. It feels like some sort of pseudo layer we embed into friendships and relations. And when it breaks, everything else breaks with it. I mean I get this feeling especially after a person who acted all friendly with me, decided to backbite and speak ill of me that he put my whole future in jeopardy. He continues to act like a dear friend but I do try to keep my distance fearing that he would be only trying to extract information from me that he would like to use against me. He was meant to be like a friendly guide/mentor helping me out and assisting me but, because of the things manipulated against me (I know this, because I know how what I’ve shared has been used against me) it becomes difficult to have trust in anybody actually. In fact, it has become increasingly difficult now to make friends or to even engage in a conversation with old friends. It’s as if the one act of betrayal of trust has just ruined my whole understanding of trust. I mean, is it even something real? Or do we just have some sort of pseudo mutual understanding with others that we ‘trust’ them, never knowing when there is too much trust? Is trust even quantifiable?
— Wandering Monk
Question #20b
Dear Jasmine,
Jasmine is one of my favourite flowers with all its pristine whiteness and a universe of maddening fragrance.
Apropos your beautiful, thoughtful letter to whathappenstotheheart, I have lost the married life I thought was the home I had been looking for since I was a child who grew up in a very difficult and dysfunctional way of life. It’s been more than four years of experiencing heartbreak - not for the first time - and all that follows. I have come a very long way from what were days of despair, and I will not deny myself the agency because it took a lot of effort to travel beyond that path. However, since our child is involved we have been living under the same roof for reasons practical and financial.
I know people, with all their wisdom, would say it’s best for a child to be removed from a place of chaos and where there’s no love. But I think I would be very selfish if I move out, given the fact that I can’t bear the pain of being in the same place with the man I had thought is different in every sense of the word. He loves the child and I cannot tear them apart. I want her to have the option of having both her parents available at the same time. I want her to have a sense of choice.
You talked about reaching out to people to parse feelings, thrash out emotions and generally have a conversation. I have been trying to do that but with only very little success. The friends I have and who are willing to talk are in a different city. And those who live here have the “background of their own lives” and their share of issues to deal with. At times, I think no one wants to hear out someone’s litany of what they are going through.
I have tried therapy as well and found it very impersonal.
I understand nothing remains the same and the cyclical nature of life washes everything clean in its path. This too shall pass, they say. I must be patient with myself and allow time to heal me, they say. But, being on the other side of 40, I feel I am losing time. At times, I feel that sense of breathlessness taking over me. I want to move on, live my life the way I want to. I still believe in love, in all its glory and messiness. I believe with all of my heart and mind that people need love to carry on. I believe in kindness most of all.
I am not looking for a romantic relationship but something meaningful — a sense of belonging, shared conversations, time together.
Does all this make sense?
— Trying to Make Sense of Life
Answer 20: The Patience to Build an Ancient Friendship
Dear Wandering Monk & Trying to Make Sense of Life,
I feel that I have become self-effacing. I shy away from photographs. I hesitate to speak up in meetings. I put my needs at the bottom of the list. I encourage our Jasmine community to be vulnerable but I appear strong for my loved ones such that I postpone being vulnerable myself. It is not that I am disappearing into the wall or melting into the crowd but it seems that I am trying. Sometimes my friends stop me from doing so, and sometimes, I stop myself. However, when I see photos of myself from before the pandemic or when someone hands me a kind gesture, I feel seen. I feel a little spark inside me as if I matter and that I don’t have to erase myself. I feel that I can participate in the dance of my own life. The act of being seen by someone else with compassion makes me see myself with kinder eyes.
The way others see us has such a profound impact on us humans that we have created elaborate societal rituals and started multi-million dollar companies around this feeling of being seen. At the crux of it is our needs for belonging, our yearning to be witnessed, and our desire to be affirmed. At the crux of it we all have the same internal monologue — I want to belong. Can you witness me? I hope I am doing this right.
You belong to us. We see you doing your best. You’ve got this.
To me, both your letters are emblematic of our need for other people, or our need to want friendships, if I may simplify for sake of conversation. If I had to dig a little deeper, I suspect that you both are in need of old friendships. You know the kind of friendships that are built over a long period of time, in which we can be ourselves freely and are based on truth-telling with good intention. Usually, these friendships are cemented when we are growing up and we hold on to them for dear life, if we are lucky. As we grow up, we find that friendships are lost to marriages, workplaces, and life’s journeys. Our emotional reserves are strapped so thin that we are unable to give our friendships the kind of time and affection they need to stay healthy, to stay thriving.
So, it would not be too far off to say that as time passes by, we get lonelier simply because our societies are unable to make spaces for friendships to be sustained or because people are reckless with our hearts. I remember a friend from another city once called me at the close of a day to talk about how he was tired of making new friends in his city who would stop staying in touch and he would have to go out and make new friends again. He didn’t want to do it anymore. But he also didn’t want to be lonely. The more he met new people who eventually left, the lonelier he became. It was tough on him but I was glad he was able to verbalise it. Some of us are not able to call out our loneliness as if the word was a curse.
You’re never fully alone even when you think so. Someone, somewhere recognises the shape of your heart.
I wonder if the modern world has space for the ways of old friendships, ancient friendships. Do we have the patience for saplings to grow so we can sit under the shade of trees? Deep in my stubbornly, hopeful heart, I believe we have what it takes to build ancient friendships that we can come home to, friends whom we can trust with our lives. I understand that it is passé to speak in superlatives, but why are our imaginations so impoverished that we can’t imagine people who will guard us with their life? That we can’t be people who will guard others’ lives? I say this because it would be a disservice if I asked both of you to open your hearts to go out and meet new people to invite into your lives without understanding what we want. I fear that like my friend, it would only make you lonelier. So, instead, I want to do the hard work with both of you to reckon with the collapse of resilience. Maybe if we start with the pieces, we will come to the whole.
To belong and to trust is not a one-way street. You got to give a little, you got to take a little. It’s a slow dance of the world we live in. When people have to rebuild broken trust, such as you will have to Wandering Monk, it will take not only your courage to open up to new people, but also for them to honour your trust. If we trust in good people, they will honour our trust.
But what is a ‘good’ person anyway? A good person is a person who is good for you, your heart, your values, and your overall well-being. Seek good people, Wandering Monk. If you’re going to play this game of deception with your pseudo-mentor, the fact remains that you’re still in the game. If this is a work situation where you can’t afford to burn bridges, I would say close the door on this person. If possible, leave the organisation. If this is a culture that’s tolerated, it is probably being celebrated behind closed doors. But if it is a work-situation where you can, at least, let the pseudo-mentor know you’ve been hurt by their actions, I would recommend doing so. Clearly letting people know that their actions have been despicable and they have affected you negatively is always a release. Try doing it plainly, softly, but assertively. There’s no negotiation for how they made you feel. Their actions belong to them. Your feelings belong to you. Either this will cause them to be enraged (accountability in such people is rare) or this might cause them to clear a misunderstanding or this might cause them to falter. Either way, you will be free of having to hold the pain inside you while you carry on with your days.
Unload your heart, sift your feelings. Give some of them away, keep some with you. And what doesn’t work for you, let it go.
Fortunately or unfortunately, our journeys to build solid adult relationships has to begin with us. It’s a shame we can’t go out into the world holding a board ‘Need a Friend’. The truth is most of us need a friend, we need more than one friend, we need a circle of belonging. We have to remember we belong to that circle ourselves. This is so much like the mechanics of romantic relationships, isn’t it? We keep putting ourselves out there, hurt after hurt, until we find someone to marry. Then, we hang up our hearts and forget about it all until the end of time. I suspect it doesn’t stop making us lonely, does it? Is there some truth in that, Trying to Make Sense of Life? I don’t know how you live with someone who you’ve left behind emotionally. Practicality is a good thing, sometimes, but is this arrangement practical for you? Is it practical in a way that your heart feels at home? Is it practical for your needs?
Often, the questions we are scared to ask ourselves have the answer to what we should be doing. We cannot hide from our needs no matter how hard we try. We can ignore our needs for months, years, but they will sit under the skin and wait till we finally have the courage to listen to them. Our body is paying attention to our emotions. Our body stores our emotions. Until we don’t release them, we can’t make space for new feelings to flow through our veins. There’s a reason we say that people glow with happiness or are shadowed by gloom. What is inside us will reflect on the outside. Follow that energy, Wandering Monk. Follow the calling of your inner voice, Trying to Make Sense of Life. Ask yourself what your needs are and instead of hiding yourself from the dance of your own life, step into the world and demand it.
We know you are hurt. We are hurt, too. Can we meet together in the middle, apply balm to each other’s wounds, sit in silence for a bit?
People are our only hope. I know, I know, this isn’t what we want to hear sometimes. But it is a fact. Neither of you wants to be by themselves, going through life without a shared sense of existence with others. So, we have to address that fact. Yes, this is the point where I will ask you to consciously meet new people and be intentional about what you want from them — the patience to build an ancient friendship. It will require everyone involved to have hope, forgiveness, and courage. Be shameless about it. Carry that invisible ‘Need a Friend’ board and when you meet them ask them (like we ask our romantic partners) will you be my forever friend? Do you have the courage to build a friendship? Will you honour my trust? Will you witness me? Will you hold space for me to grow alongside you? If they don’t, that's great because they’ve saved you time. But if they do, take them out for an open-hearted conversation and a cup of tea. Believe in the loneliness of our times. Then cast a spell to make it disappear.
We humans have a responsibility towards each other. We have to take care of our people through complex emotions, the highs of life, grief of everyday loss, and the intertwining of despair and hope. Every relationship is a two-way street. Every single last one of them. The one at the railway ticket counter. The one with your boss. The one with your maid. The one with your new friend. The one with your hurt toe. The one with your child. The one with your borrowed book. The one with your father. The one with your plants. The one with your craft. The one with your mirror. The one with your own self.
Heal your wounds and consciously create a circle of belonging for yourselves, Wandering Monk and Trying to Make Sense of Life. Do the silly thing of signing up on apps to make friends or going to the local hobby workshop. Do the hard things of spelling out what you want from people in your life. Do the vulnerable thing and write down what you want and then go out with a torch seeking it.
We cannot escape hardship and emotional complexities, we have to accept them as a part of the plan. We cannot hide behind a filigree partition and wait till the tide turns over. Wherever we are, we must have the courage to seek out people who will honour our need. Wherever we are, we must have the fortitude to meet the needs of people who have sought us and who we care for. Nothing less will do. There’s no human island. There’s no hyper-individuality. There’s no letting go of expectations. We are not here to live alone no matter how hurt we may be.
We are all waiting for each other to make the first move. We are all waiting for someone to call us home.
Love,
Jasmine
Dear Jasmine is a monthly column by an anonymous writer. If any of you want to send in questions, please send them to Jasmine here.