Looking out across a deep and treacherous ravine that I know I must cross, my heart quickens,  my palms sweat and I close my eyes to quell the fear. It can’t be done. Eyes open and suddenly, stretched out before me is a horizontal rope ladder leading me to the other side.  Still dangerous, but it might work if I crawl slowly. The side of the ravine I currently stand on is ‘now’. It’s where my life is at the moment, which is not quite where I want it to be.  The other side of the crevice is my future, the life I need to get to. That rope bridge, undoubtedly, is a carefully crafted, strategically knotted, length of rope ladder made up of my friends.  They have joined together, hands to feet, to become the net connecting me from one side of this deep ravine to the other. Right now I’m crawling over them. I’m on top of them. I’m sticking my foot in their faces, knees in their chests and squeezing their forearms as I reach forward to move along, but they don’t care.  I know they will hang on and let me walk across until they are positive I am safe on the other side. The other day, when I suddenly realized this was happening, I filled up with an actual physical warmth and I understood how charmed I was to have these friends, past and present. Simultaneously, I realized something else...I’m a predictable little stereotype. A selfish writer.  Walk all over my friends why don’t I.  Gross.

How many movies have you seen about crazy tortured artists, painters, and writers, who have been difficult to live with and ultimately selfish?  Maybe doing things like climbing across a rope bridge made of people?  My aunt once referred to me as ‘a bit flaky’ in response to my ditching post secondary in favour of a year living on an island in the Caribbean.  I was so proud, so proud of that assessment that I forgot to be offended. Am I an artist because I feel impulsive, selfish and don’t know where I am going?  Is it time for me to have the courage and audacity to call myself this now? The ‘user’ quality that accompanies this label is a bit of a hallmark of a creative person and quite sincerely my least favourite part of myself.  

So now I sit, cross legged, deep in self-reflection, marveling at all the people who have not run away from me like a patient running from a root canal when the dentist turns his back. Instead, so many have moved closer.  It’s time I pony up and pay homage to all the rungs in my ladder, my friends. How you can tolerate my knee in your pelvis as I crawl, I’ll never know.  I’m guessing it’s the Prosecco.

Despite my questionable behaviour, I have had a lifetime of sharing moments with some incredible people.  Years and years of laughing, crying, yelling, traveling, eating, walking, dancing and talking, lots of talking, with girlfriends, boyfriends, roommates and everyone else who may have accidentally or purposefully entered my orb.  It’s difficult to qualify how or why I have been so lucky but nonetheless, I have some very deep and lasting friendships. I look back to friends who have driven to a gas station out of town to fill my tank when I left my purse at home, friends who have listened while I struggled with newborns, friends who didn’t let me freak out when we were lost on a canoe trip or washed out on a mountainside in Nepal, pre-GPS. Friends who could make fun of my home perm without being mean about it, friends who never made fun of my hand-me-down bike, friends who let me sober up at their house before sending me home, friends who told me I was a good mom when I knew I’d been shitty to my kids that day. Friends who visited my skinny yellowing body when I had hepatitis A and said “you look nice!”, then didn’t blink and held a frozen smile for more than a few steamboats so I would actually believe I looked good.  Friends I could share a tiny bathroom with in India while suffering from, wait for it, travelers diarrhea. THAT’S FRIENDSHIP! Please note the word ‘bathroom’ is being generous.

There’s the friend who sent me a book to inspire me in my writing, the friend who took the photos and built this web site, all the friends who have been having lunch with me lately, who I know are busy, to keep me motivated and on the path to writing that screenplay or book. And kudos to the ones who are super successful, we haven’t spoken in years, but didn’t hesitate to give me a reference or make a connection for me as I switch career gears.  I even love the friend who thought it was funny to hip-check me into the bushes after a few Moscow mules or tried to draw on my face while I slept during a cottage weekend. Or the ones who hid me in a room when I accidentally took a sleeping pill at work so I could.. well...sleep it off. That happened. It really happened. Lest I forget the friend who picked through my hair in the bathroom at work to check for lice? Oh gawd - that happened too.

I love the friends who are so deep in my life they can say, with caring and confidence, ‘take those pants off and never wear them again”.  The power of friendship is closely tied to the ability to share clothes and the opinions associated with  fashion. Then there are the ones who I gathered with weekly at a cowboy bar to drink peanuts and eat beer with, that’s what it felt like sometimes, to commiserate over our bosses.  That was a million years ago and we still get together.  Now we have slightly better snacks and more upscale cocktails. At least we do at the beginning of the evening.

Being impulsive, moody, reclusive at times, judgmental and all around unpredictable is not the best kind of person to recruit as a friend but I have been drafted to some pretty amazing friend groups regardless.   Because of this, I have reaped immeasurable rewards. Anna Deveare Smith, a deeply talented actress and playwright remarks “Friendship is a wildly underrated medication”. Like taking a magic pill, this medicine has given me self-worth, banished loneliness to a corner, built a confidence in me so I can try new things without fear, coached me through stressful times, and distracted me from destructive behaviour.  It is highly likely I will live longer, love better, be healthier, and experience less fear and anxiety due to my friendships. Friendship is a drug and I have been hooked for a while. It’s greatest side effect for me has always been laughter.

I predict one day I will laugh so hard with my friends we break a mirror, obliterating those laugh lines that bother us so much, and we spend more time focused on the things that brought us together in the first place, life’s punch lines. 

Looking back on a pivotal summer in his preteens, Richard Dreyfuss, as the narrator in the 1986 coming-of-age film "Stand By Me" says, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”.  I too remember with fondness how it felt to be with my friends when I was a kid, what is was like to have days stretched out before me on summer vacation and nothing to do but cartwheels until I vomited. I believed it was good for the grass.

There was a simplicity and safety in those childhood friendships that held plenty of room to make mistakes.  My earlier friendships have taught me everything I know about navigating adult relationships. Every horrible or stupid thing I did or said as a kid has remained with me like a scar on my knee after a bike fall.  When I am just about to say something ridiculous or mean as an adult, that scar itches and tingles like a ‘spidey sense’ and reminds me to think before I speak. Funny thing about scars though, sometimes they itch after I’ve already been stupid and I am left icing the bump of regret.   

I loved being a kid.

I always did what had to be done in terms of school, homework, chores, and part time job but everything exciting or meaningful had to do with hanging out with friends. Just taking off on our bikes, swimming at the dock, riding the bus downtown, whispering and passing notes in the library, watching the boys play baseball and getting into neighborhood mischief. I have no idea what my grade 12 average was but I remember prom night with my friends.  I can’t remember what my final chemistry exam was like, but I know who I sat with in class. I have no idea what was on my timetable for first semester University, but I remember the spicy, smiling redhead who befriended me and took me out for a falafel. Decades later, I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with that redhead and her three kids. Again, I am lucky.

Some people run around with movie lines in their repertoire like “I’ll be back”, or “You had me at hello” but I always go back to "Stand By Me" and the sentiment about friendship.  Will this generation of selfie takers, FB friends and Instagram 'likers' know the deep rewards of a true friendship? Will they know what it’s like to stay up late with someone who is actually in the same room as you and let them ugly cry without being tempted to film it?  That a friendship is not to be counted but counted on?

I’m a Thelma with a lot of Louise’s.  I definitely get the Gayle and Oprah thing, and I can only hope I have been Bert to someone’s Ernie. This is the social network I have built without an algorithm.  Each member has put in time and effort to be kind and patient and build me up. With or without wifi, we remain connected and I am better because of each of them. Each of you.

They say it’s better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.  I never asked if all your generosity or kindness was for me. I just took it.  I never asked if I could get your support. I just assumed it was there. I fear I have been in all these valued friendships as more of a user. Now I am hoping and asking all of you to forgive me. In all those great buddy movies there consistently seems to be that one friend who is a loaf, a dipstick hippy idealist who hangs around his friends pool, waxing poetic, complaining about not having a pool but happily using that of his friends.  I am beginning to think this might be me. Happy to drive someone else’s convertible but not willing to earn my own in case it should spoil my image of being flaky and artsy. Be grateful some of you don’t know me. Horrible horrible cliche!

Forgive me friends for any injustices I may have inflicted upon you.  For any times I may not have been present. For things said or not said.  I’ve looked down now and I know you are there holding me up. Don’t let go.  I still need you. And I promise to build a gondola when I get to the other side so you can rest, travel safe, come for a drink and maybe, finally swim in my pool built just for you.

Note:  These photos span the 80's to present.  There was no Pinterest for most of my life to tell me what to wear!

Carol Sloan

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