So, that topic has been on my mind a while and it's really related to some recent threads, too, like the price thread MKAC started ....
Anyway, I saw this quote on a calendar at a friend's house a few days ago - 'friendship is an art and very few are born with the natural gift for it.'
My first thought (negative because I've been feeling somewhat negative about the state of some of my friendships or my ability to make/keep/nurture/nourish them) was that - if that is true, then I definitely was NOT born with the gift!
The 2nd thought/question is .... maybe some don't have the natural gift for it, but can learn it .... and then it must be easier for some to learn it than others?!
I look at most others around me and observe the seeming ease with which they conduct their friendships and social interactions, things seeming to come so simply and naturally, some things almost automatic, an effort yes, but not such conscious effort, like it seems to be for me.
What it seems to be is others are more able in some ways to pay the price, as it were, for friendships .... or things that seem like a cost to me are things that don't seem to be so much a cost for others, or they don't consider the cost to themselves as I can't seem to help but do.
And the willingness to pay the price - maybe this is where I really fall some short. I do want connections/friendships/relationships, but I don't think I'm willing for the price or only willing for part ..... but then you get what you're willing to pay for, probably!

I've been feeling like a good friend has been growing distant from me. I thought she probably needed time/space because we went through an intense time last summer and she did stick with me, but I thought maybe she might need a break from me, sort of! Only the quietness between us lengthened until I asked her about it and she said she thought I was distancing myself from her and that she guessed I thought our friendship was best from afar.
Well, so that had sort of been in my mind, is it really me and her just respecting what she perceives in me? And I have to admit, it is likely true - that I do feel safer with friendships from afar, as it were. I DO want the connection and the bond but I also want distance and space and separateness too most of the time .... the security I suppose of knowing that there is a bond, a relationship that I can turn to when I do feel the need for it but also the safety from too much vulnerability (and preserving myself from having to give more than I imagine I have to give, too, I think, as I don't feel like I have a huge emotional capacity/capability to draw from!). I imagine that I want emotional intimacy and deep intense close friendships, but over the long haul, I turn away and choose distance and emotional space. I guess I can handle intellectual depth and closeness in a relationship but maintained emotional depth and closeness is too hard for me? I suppose it's about learning a balance .....
Anyway, I have made efforts to reconnect with this friend, but am just not sure if we can bridge the distance that has grown ..... and it hurts .... because she has been a good close safe friend and those are rare and precious to me. But I think she might be wondering if I am worth the cost ..... the intensity and then the retreat, the depth and then the distance ....

But I just wonder, why is the very thing I know I feel such longing for at times in the depth of my heart/soul also the thing I DON'T seem to want to pay the price for? Why am I only willing to pay part of the price .... why does the cost seem too great for me? Because the cost of not being willing to pay the price is also great .....
Why is friendship and connection maintenance so damn hard for me?!

And sorry, I rambled on forever again and anyone who reads this all will probably have to uncross the eyes and roll them at me and wonder what one earth can be said to all this?!