Relish the balance.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. — Dale Carnegie.

Penny has written. I am “wow”ing. Read it in its entirety; it’ll do you good.

I almost wish she would stop writing so I can stop making these “wow” posts about her writing, but then I’d be bereft of her writing and the thinking it incites, and that would be no good.

So I am wowing. And thinking. And comparing, because I have been on both sides of that fence separating “RM” and Penny; I think it’s age and a lack of experience, but my idealism and my realism are still battling to the death in my life. Part of me wants to pass the link on to some specific people, but I know better than to do so, because ambiguity is a dirty son-of-a-bitch and things are finally starting to get clearer all around. Sometimes the clarity hurts, but it’s so much better than delusion.

You can, if you want, remember that I am a friend, before I am a woman, to you. If you don’t trust me or have faith in my knowing certain things about myself or having learned from my own past or being comfortable with my own inner-workings, if you don’t understand that I will grow at my own pace and I may or may not ask your advice and I may or may not follow it and that I will do disappointing things in our friendship and in my own seperate personal life, if you cannot believe in me first before you believe in what others have to say about me, or if you cannot seperate the two and understand that to each his own perspective and if you don’t trust that I am just me, […] just a girl, without a hidden agenda, then we have no basis for friendship.

Those who think me secretive or incomprehensibly complex simply don’t have the curiosity to ask enough questions. I’m learning to not be frustrated by that, to not set my bar so high that I demand my friends be as actively curious/inquisitve about me as I am about them. Some of that is resignation, yes, but it’s also realism and a growing understanding that an acceptable balance may be one in which the information flows primarily in my direction (see the above Carnegie quote). If anything, that acceptance of this “skewed” balance allows me to be more open when I’m asked to be.

Why? Because there are as close to no conditions as possible [original emphasis]. Of course it’s the strongest connection. It’s what I seek out in friendships and I won’t settle for less.

A lesson for myself and others: love and foster the openness and the closeness and the intimacy and the trust; cherish it like nothing else, because friends will be there when your family and/or the other components of your life fail you. But…

I am not your reason for being or your reason to smile. I can help you be a happier or better person, like all friends do, but I am just a girl.

Heh.

Yeah. Just the “but” should have been sufficient. Don’t get it twisted.

There isn’t something inherently wrong with me. I am motivated and strong and fun and sometimes I have moments of addiction or discouragement or sorrow, but none of these things can be ‘fixed’ by a man in my life. They can be helped by my friends, male or female.

One last thing: Penny removed one paragraph in her revision that I’m going to take the liberty of quoting anyway (it can be removed upon request) because I thought it was particularly awesome.

And, when I find [a relationship/love], as per chance may have it, it will not be so that I can cuddle with a warm body, on my sofa, watching flicks. I can get a dog for that [ed note: or a cat!]. It will be because I have met my match. My challenging, inspiring, equal. And, it better be more provacative than my friendships, which are already the most treasured parts of my being.

Lyrics of my song of the day are in the extension of the entry. I’ve changed the radio.blog to consist of my favorite Sting/Police songs. Enjoy.

Sting’s “Seven Days”

’seven days’ was all she wrote
A kind of ultimatum note
She gave to me, she gave to me
When I thought the field had cleared
It seems another suit appeared
To challenge me, woe is me
Though I hate to make a choice
My options are decreasing mostly rapidly
Well we’ll see
I don’t think she’d bluff this time
I really have to make her mine
It’s plain to see
It’s him or me

Monday, I could wait till tuesday
If I make up my mind
Wednesday would be fine, thursday’s on my mind
Friday’d give me time, saturday could wait
But sunday’d be too late

The fact that he’s six feet ten
Might instill fear in other men
But not in me, the mighty flea (flee? )
Ask if I am mouse or man
The mirror squeaked, away I ran
He’ll murder me in time for his tea
Does it bother me at all
My rival is neanderthal, it makes me think
Perhaps I need a drink
Iq is no problem here
We won’t be playing scrabble for her hand I fear
I need that beer

Monday, I could wait till tuesday
If I make up my mind
Wednesday would be fine, thursday’s on my mind
Friday’d give me time, saturday could wait
But sunday’d be too late

Seven days will quickly go
The fact remains, I love her so
Seven days, so many ways
But I can’t run away

Monday, I could wait till tuesday
If I make up my mind
Wednesday would be fine, thursday’s on my mind
Friday’d give me time, saturday could wait
But sunday’d be too late
Do I have to tell a story
Of a thousand rainy days since we first met
It’s a big enough umbrella
But it’s always me that ends up getting wet