COLUMN: Counting My Blessings

From Allison Winn's "Allison Wonderland," Fall '95 At first, I was struck by this comment made by someone close enough to make it seem legitimate. It stung to think that maybe, I was not as popular as other people, that something was perhaps wrong with me, that people intentionally would chose not to be a intimate part of my life. Was it me or was it the people I knew? I questioned, I probed. I wrestled with my thoughts. Had I done something wrong along my path of life causing me to miss out on the pleasures of numerous friendships? And then it hit me. Perhaps it was my friend, the very one who had accused me, who was wrong in his interpretation of friendship. And more importantly, perhaps my limited number of friendships was something to behold, rather than belittle. I can count the number of my true friends on nearly one hand, maybe, possibly, including the index finger of my left, if I stretch it to include a childhood friend that I have not spoken to in several months, yet with whom I still preserve an intimate bond. But that might be cheating, I haven't yet decided. Six friends. It sounds lonely, it sounds shameful. So why is it something that I am proud of? There was a time, back in my high school career, when I collected friends in the way that some people collect shoes. I had a different friend for every occasion. There was one I could call when I wanted to see a movie. Another when I needed a question answered about my calculus homework. Someone else who would inevitably attend that party when someone's parents left town. My weekends were taken, my phone was ringing, my Filofax was full. Then I just dropped out. I dropped out of the very scene that I had helped to establish. I no longer wanted the attention of those friends because something had clicked inside of me. Those people whom I called my friends were hardly such. I used so many of them for different roles that I found I was not comfortable sharing the parts of my life with them in which they were not included. I felt somehow censored. If I chose to venture beyond our limited realm of friendship in their presence and give them something unexpected, they, in return, would give me signs of disapproval. I discovered that in my collection of friends, I had many with whom I was close yet not personal. People whose absence might go undetected for several days. People who I would not call in a time of need and who would not call me. I learned that friendship is not as easy as I once thought. It is not about attaching yourself to someone because you like how they dress or what they stand for. It is not about using a person to get somewhere where you are not. It is not about how many Valentine's cards you received last week or how many people attended your birthday party. Those are the types of friendships that I sought to leave behind. And when I finally left them, I learned that friendship is about mutual trust, mutual respect, mutual caring. It means doing something for a friend when you were not even asked to, when it was not even mentioned. Doing it simply because you sensed that it should be done. It means driving them to the AIDS clinic for a test or buying her a flower when her heart has been broken or merely sitting in silence when no advice can be offered but knowing your presence alone is enough. Friendship means giving when you don't know what or if you can, but trying to do so all the same. To have more than a few of these relationships is simply impossible. We only have so much capacity, so much empathy, so much time. I have grown up since high school. I have become more comfortable with myself and my decisions, both in my life and with my friends. I am not ashamed of my short list of friends. It is, in fact, among the most precious and revered items that I can claim as mine. It might mean that some nights I sit home alone when my friends are all busy, or that my answering machine might never have to record more than two messages over the span of my day. But it also means that there are six people in the world who would walk to the end of the earth for me, and six people for whom I would make that same journey. I have come to discover that I am honored and blessed to count these six people as part of my life. Friends are not a collection. Friends are a luxury of the highest form. I will take my six friends and consider myself rich, not in their numbers, but in their love, their compassion and their honesty. They have touched my life in a way that I never imagined. Together, we have traveled down roads that I did not know existed and have explored places in both the world and in ourselves that I thought could not be uncovered. We are holding each others' hands for life, and in our grip, have found the very meaning of true friendship. Allison Winn is a senior history major from Seattle, Wash. "Allison Wonderland" appears alternate Tuesdays.