Improving my grade

As I was getting home from work on Friday night, I received a phone call from a friend of mine to tell me that he was in the hospital. While he was reluctant to give details of his hospitalization over the phone, the message was loud and clear: a week prior to that he had attempted to take his own life. I'm not going to talk about his reasons and his method; those are his own and it's not my place to share that with the world. He is alive, he is still with us, and he's hurting like hell, but he is still here.

This situation has made me aware of what a really bad friend I am. I had absolutely no idea that he was going through the things that he was going through. When Edgar and I visited him in the hospital on Saturday, he told us about a myriad of things that have been compounding over the last year that brought him to his breaking point, and in the back of my head there was this little voice going I had no idea. I once had a friend that jokingly told me "You get an F in calling people back." I can't even remember what friend it was (BECAUSE I'M THAT BAD AT BEING A FRIEND), and while it was meant as a joke, it was totally right. I'm notoriously bad at answering my phone. Usually because it's buried at the bottom of my purse, and if I'm not in the same room with said purse, I'm not going to hear the phone ring. Or sometimes I'll hear the phone ring but I'll be all "Hmmph, I'm comfortable right now, I'm not getting up. If it's important they'll leave a message." And later I'll listen to the message, but if it isn't life or death, the likelihood of me returning that call is very slim. Not that I don't care, but I'm lazy. I'd much rather be reading a book or curled up on the couch with my husband watching TV than talking on the phone. My parents, once Edgar and I had moved in together, often started calling his cell phone whenever they wanted to talk to me because they knew that Edgar would answer.

Because it's easy. It's easier to not make the effort than it is to work on a friendship. I always hear people say that "Relationships are hard work"; I'll admit to finding this expression ridiculous in the past. My relationship with Edgar has always felt effortless. We don't work on our marriage. Or at least if we are working on it, it doesn't feel like work. Yes, we've had to work through hard times together, but it was always the circumstance, not the relationship, that needed the work. But I'm beginning to see that this expression, at least in my life, doesn't apply to the relationship in my marriage--it applies to my relationships with my friends.

I have very few friends. I have one friend from when I lived in Indiana that I still keep in touch with, and even that is very sporadic. Not because we don't like each other anymore, not because we've had a falling out, just because I GET AN F AT CALLING PEOPLE BACK. I only really have one friend in California, and seeing as his life was so bad that he wanted to end it and I didn't even know about it, I guess you could say that I SUCK AS A FRIEND. Whenever Edgar and I have people over, it's his friends that we're seeing. Edgar doesn't suck as a friend.

I think that making friends as an adult is hard. Once you're out of school and you're in a professional environment and you're out of the world where it's ok to stay out until 2 every night drinking, you don't really get to meet a lot of new people that are of the friendship material. Not without putting out the effort. And even with the effort it's still hard. Where do you make these friends, the friends that you can invite over for dinner, or go shopping with, or catch a movie with on a Saturday afternoon?

So here is my goal: to be a better friend. To be a better daugther, a better sister. To call people back. To answer the phone. To put forth the effort.

And I'm getting my first chance. Our friend will be staying with Edgar and I once he is released from the hospital while he starts to put his life back together. It's obviously not a permanent situation, since we live in a one bedroom apartment (even though it's spacious with the loft) and will very soon be trying to have a baby. He'll probably be racing to get out of there after a few weeks; three adults, 1 bathroom, 2 cats, 1 litterbox. Fiyero will likely not be pleased with having to share his domain with another cat. I talk too loud. The parking is bad. But now is the time to start being that friend that I should have been all along. It's time to stop caring from afar and to actually do something besides listen to a voicemail. It's time to help.