A conversation
My grandfather today asked me if I had good friends, ones I could ask about anything. (Maybe not relations with your husband, if you had one, he added.) Yes, I said, I do have those friends. (The fact that I *won’t* bring up anything doesn’t mean I couldn’t; it’s my insanity, not my friends’ lack of trustworthiness.) I don’t have many friends, but the ones I have are good ones. (I tend not to have casual acquaintances, though I wouldn’t mind some. I am not good at meeting people, though, or even really suggesting stuff with people I know but not well.)
I am not sure why he asked me. He sounded sad that he didn’t have many friends now. Mostly he outlived them, and he said — jokingly? I don’t know — that when they spent money before it was on boats and not golf clubs, where he might have always been meeting more people. He sounded pleased, or perhaps relieved, that I have friends like that. Friends at all? Sometimes I wonder what my family thinks of me. Sometimes I am not sure I want to know.
June 18th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
And it is good that you have those friends . . . it sounds to me like he is feeling lonely. But I can see how you’d wonder what about you prompted him to ask.