On Friendship

(Sidenote: Another blog I found unfinished and unpublished amongst my posts. Again, I like it, so as incomplete as it is, I am publishing it anyway. I believe this is from about four years ago or so, but I can't say for sure.)

What is friendship and how do we define it? What makes one person a friend and another an acquaintance and yet another merely a stranger? When I was younger I thought it was the level of affection one felt towards other people that was the distinguishing factor, but now I know that cannot possibly be true.
I have felt more amity towards certain people I've never talked to than others I've been near every day, day after day. Of course, that doesn't make us friends, but shouldn't it make us something? There are just certain people I have encountered in my life whom I've looked at and felt an undeniable connection to. I have felt their souls bared before me, reaching out to me -- and the only conversation we shared was me taking their lunch order. Does that count for something? Will my goodwill towards them amount to anything? Have I impacted their lives?
Kindred spirits. Chemistry. I don't know what it's called, but I know it exists.
Somewhere I read once that we should appreciate our friends, not for what we imagine we could have with them but for what we actually have with them. And this seems to be true. In earlier times of my life, I saw my friends for what we might have had and imagined there was more than there was because I saw everything that could have been, if only. In the end, I think that hurt all of us. It hurt me because they never responded to me in the same way I imagined they should, if the relationship had reached it's potential. And it hurt them because they could never live up to my expectations.
Now I am more reasonable. I don't expect the people I meet or am friends with to give me the world or love me better than anyone else or hang out with me everyday. But that doesn't stop me from feeling that sometimes with certain people there's more of a connection than meets the eye. Some people just mean more to me than the sum of my experiences with them, whether those experiences are drawn out over a period of years or limited to four seconds of eye contact in a crowded room. And I guess the saddest part of that is that maybe some of them will never know how much I, unimportant as I may be in their lives, want them to do well. And isn't it important for everyone to know there are people out there hoping for their success and happiness?

Elongated Dawn

(Sidenote: I just found this saved among my blogs, unpublished. I don't know when I wrote it or how long it has been sitting there, unread, unpublished, unfinished -- I'm guessing years -- but despite being incomplete, I still like the thought, so I'm publishing it now.)

Come 2 in the afternoon, dawn still clings to the cloud-cloaked sky. I see no hint of blue on the edges of the horizon. I feel no hope that the drizzle will cease. This morning, my half-night's rest was slowly replaced by a growing consciousness of the dim-light of daybreak. But an hour later, the same ungrown light lingered behind my window curtains and I realized this day would never fully bloom. Despite the unmistakable signs that this day was best experienced as a curl-on-the-couch-with-hot-cocoa day, I packed a lunch and trudged through the puddles. I dutifully took notes in class. I remained on campus and re-established connection with my social networks
unrelenting>
I am looking forward to folding clothes in my dimly-lit and darkly furnished living room. No company but the television broadcasting a DVD I've seen twenty too many times. A cup of hot chocolate losing its warmth because I enjoy the idea of hot chocolate on a rainy day more than I enjoy the sweet taste./
How odd that while the world around me seems asleep and when my own actions feel surreal, I feel energized by a quiet but strong current of empowerment.

Finding a Unique Writer's Platform

I was reading a magazine on writing the other day, and one of the articles said, "it is important as an author to know what your platform is." Unfortunately, I finished the article feel rather uncertain what my platform might be. (also unfortunately, I can't remember which magazine I was reading or who wrote the article -- I read through a few of them in one sitting)

Apparently the author of the article came across this idea at a conference where the speaker encouraged everyone to choose a platform based on his or her area of strength or expertise. After tossing ideas such as "single motherhood" around, the writer of the article was told by the speaker that her platform seemed to be that she was a poet (much of her resume included poetry groups, etc). Voila, the author had her platform.

This didn't clarify what a platform is for me, and since I like those little labels which make us unique, I've been mulling this concept around since I read the article. What is my platform? What do I have experience and expertise in? That's a hard question for me because I tend to dabble in a lot of things rather than specializing in anything. I used to build websites, I speak French fluently, I have sisters, I'm a widowed single-mother, I've worked with exchange students to build their English skills, I've mentored people in personal finance, ... I'm sure lots of other people feel the same way.

Which leads me to what was unsaid in that article -- what makes me unique? Because, really, isn't that what makes us interesting? What makes me different from any other aspiring writer? What do I bring to the table that no one else (or few others) bring? Definitely an interesting question: one I'm not done thinking about.

In the meantime, what makes you unique? What would your "platform" be? As a writer, a mother, a person, whatever you have chosen to pursue, how do you approach it that is different from the way others in your field are approaching the same thing?