Two life sentences, awareness of the fragility of life, and the choice to have no regrets

I am serving two life sentences....

No, I am not a double murderer or someone who is subject to the possibility of being recalled to a prison at any time. In fact the worst thing I ever did in my life (in terms of the criminal law anyway) was leaving graffiti on a few tables at my high school years ago.

Over the last few weeks I have been reflecting on some of the choices I have made in the course of being part of this industry, the most unusual and controversial of which must be to pursue friendships with Erin and L, working ladies whom I previously saw on professional bases. How I wound up friends with the two of them is explained here, here, and here. And the more I think about it, the more certain I am that it is the deaths of two people with whom I had some form of connection or another that have influenced my choices the most. The background to these events is explained here.

To further explain how their deaths have influenced me, I can only say that the "life sentence" analogy is the most apt one that I can think of.

This guy will simply never be as happy as he could have been without these events. And they have made a very lasting impact in terms of making me ultra aware of the fragility of life and developed in me a strong sense of wanting to avoid the possibility of not having the chance of telling people for whom I have a certain degree of intensity of emotions how I feel towards them. It's the latter theme that I want to explore here.

The difficulties of expressing my intensity

Since the resumption of this blog, I have been at pains to emphasise how much sheer serendipity and a most unusual coalescing of factors have enabled my friendships with L and Erin. And lest anyone gets the impression that I have necessarily always grasped such fortune by the horns and pursued matters as the heart and head took me, they really couldn't be more wrong. For a long time, I was torn between nagging doubts about the seeming insanity of pursuing these friendships given how we met, "real world" concerns about things like how to explain such friendships to people, and most importantly......

.... I struggled to believe that I could adequately explain to both Erin and L my honest but intense desire to be friends with them and to connect  with them emotionally as a human being. These blog posts have frequently explained the objectively wonderful qualities of both, in terms of their openness, honesty, independence, concern for others/injustices of this world, and everything else. Some of my bumbling and pathetic attempts at telling these two how I feel about them as friends wouldn't be out of place in "How To Sound Really Stupid and Lame" DVDs. I might be regarded as highly intelligent, have an Ivy League post-graduate education, hold down a very good job,and so forth but I really, really do struggle to explain to people how and why I emotionally connect with them.

And L and Erin are two of about only 8 to 10 people with whom I have formed genuine and serious emotional bonds. It's not that I don't normally talk to people and so on but I really don't "connect" in any deep, emotional way with the vast majority of people I meet despite being regarded generally as a pleasant and easy-going individual. It's difficult for me to explain how/why we connect and as L has suggested to me, we'd be much better off if we just stopped bothering with finding an answer. I agree with her.

But I honestly couldn't bear the thought of possibly leaving this earth and never having them know that I care about them as human beings and as friends. So I did and fortunately the feelings were mutual and my sheer emotional retardedness didn't cause them to run.

The Rewards?

One simple act between Erin and I earlier today sums it all up IMO. We have both been having a tough time and in her case she is facing the absolute certainty of impending grief. After lunch we walked to a quiet spot together and engaged in a long embrace. We both cried a little bit over our recent turmoil and wiped a few tears from each others' eyes. There is no lust or love in the relationship sense between either of us (nor I with L) but an absolute certainty that our concern and feelings for one another as friends are real. Societal disapproval or lack of understanding be damned.

I/we gambled, overcame my immense emotional/intensity retardation, and "won". How much we had to overcome in terms of my self-created stumbles is also undeniable.