the frailty of human belief, or perhaps the instability of human bond sometimes can’t be forgotten. one wonders whether it’s a happier existence believing in another, or simply a more prudent choice to always assume the bad in people, the evil, the tendency for malice.

looking at my close friends, we are what jody says are LTFs—that is, long term friends. a book she was reading (which is it, jody?) proposes the idea that LTFs are friends that you dispense with niceties with, that fall right back into your lives even if they’re usually miles away. the downside to an LTF? they might not be there to stroke a bruised ego, or falsely boost you up when you need a little hypocrisy for self-gratification.

they might tell it to you straight, that you’re an ass. or that you need to grow up, wake up, come to your senses, stop being crazy, get a life, get a brain, get a clue.

and when you lose one of those, it’s like being broken up with. ten times over. this might be happening to one of my friends, for reasons unexplainable and apparently inevitable. the knife wounds sustained as a result of the wild flailing of arms in hasty explanations and reckless accusations haven’t been pretty. and they might never heal cleanly.

there are a million books out there for healing a broken heart. the usual stand in the books is “move on”, “forget about him/her”. but the one or two books on recovering from a broken friendship recommend eventual reconciliation, understanding on your part, sometimes even yogic bending over just to make it work again.

why the desperation for the sustainence of this, especially if a friend has hurt you enough? if it hurts ten times how much a breakup would, shouldn’t you be walking away ten times as fast?

people need to treasure their friends more. i used to get hurt often when i was younger because i was unable to distinguish the line between “school friend” and “close friend”, thinking that friends would be friends forever, as the cliche goes, and that as long as i put all my heart into it, i’d get the same amount of heart back.

lucky for me i’ve got a couple of friends i can call LTFs. whether i make another eventually is hard to say. treasure your LTFs, and for heaven’s sake, don’t forget the others too. because you never know how much they’re putting into you till you pull out and observe them from a distance. and it could be too late by then.