when friendship found me

Photo by Wyron A on Unsplash

*“Robert why have you been writing on self-recovery and coming home for weeks?” Well. One because I want to and two because I have inner clarity about what I desire to offer this specific moment in world history. We are reeling from a global pandemic, mass cruelty, genocide, and the threat of war. I take courage from Howard Thurman who knew his role in trying to nourish the souls of Black folks and his own engagement with moving Civil Rights forward. So. I take up the pen towards that end. I think I am almost done on the topic and the last post in this series can be found here. I don’t write these posts in a “self-help” kind of way, depending on what you mean by that. Instead, this is a storytelling endeavor. I don’t have three magic tips to being a better human. I am just sharing my own journey and hope you share yours. Thank you to everyone who has read and commented on what I’ve been pondering.

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I remember when my sanity cracked.

This is difficult for me to articulate, but I do remember. All of the resilience I was forced to exhibit throughout my life, the dysfunctional home, the searching for loves to complete me, getting wrapped up in toxic church spaces, the deaths of the ones I loved most in this world…I simply…cracked one day. What’s even more disheartening about the crack in my sanity was the reality that those around me didn’t notice. They treated me the same way they always had, desired for me to produce in the same ways that I always did. I was a person suffering in silence. I would spend long moments in anxiety attacks, begging God to help me only to hear silence in return. Those were the days where you cry so hard that your chest aches. That crack would continue in various ways over a few years until I began the journey to healing that I desperately needed.

“Loving friendships provide us with a space to experience the joy of community in a relationship where we learn to process all our issues, to cope with differences and conflict while staying connected.” bell hooks

Along that journey, there were different friends who accompanied me (and some who downright carried me footprints in the sand style) towards my whole self. It was a scary process as I discovered pain inside of me that I had never been able to fully process. I discovered grief and trauma that had been dormant for most of my time…and it was time to come and face these things. My friends have helped to remind me that my pain is not all of who I am. That those traumas I have suffered aren’t all there is to me, but they are a part of me. I remember small acts of kindness that anchored me as I dealt with raw pain. A chipotle gift card here. A loving text message there. A laugh in the early morning…I remember. Good friends, or even mediocre ones can be a signpost back home to our truest, best selves. Through their care, they hold up a map and say “Go this way and find the love you need.”

And I remember being knit back together.

finding myself.

people holding my chin

tilting my head upwards to remind me

that there is more life to live

I write on love and sacred community so much because it saved me. I write on friendship so much because I believe that the context of friendship can be a generative place for transformation and reduction of ego. Much of society diminishes the role of friends as it amplifies the pull for romance. But I know better. I haven’t always been who I am now, and those around me haven’t always been perfect…perhaps I will share some misses one day for sacred amusement. But I do know that nobody heals completely alone. Self-recovery is an individual and communal act.

I have known this precious friend since 2002. All of these years and we are still growing and changing.

“To return to love, to get the love we always wanted but never had, to have the love we want but are not prepared to give, we seek romantic relationships. We believe these relationships, more than any other, will rescue and redeem us. True love does have the power to redeem but only if we are ready for redemption. Love saves us only if we want to be saved.”

― bell hooks

I know that I have spoken of generative friendship in this piece and inevitably this may spark pain within. I’m sorry for that. Maybe you feel you don’t have a single soul that you can count on in the ways that I have described. I know the pain of friendships being extinguished. I know what it is like when those we thought would be there for a lifetime…aren’t. I can only say that in these years, I am learning to be human more fully through those I love and allow to love me back. I close this with a non-exhaustive list of those who have helped me be my best self. Enjoy this gallery and I hope one day you can make your own. Bless ya’ll.