Loyalty

I once asked someone what quality she most admired in her best friend, and she answered, "loyalty."

I've been thinking about that a lot lately...probably because now that school is in full swing and work is gearing up for our busiest season of the year I've had less and less time for friends. (Really, I haven't even made the time to run errands or sleep as much as I need/want, which isn't an excuse, but rather an indicator.) Still, I try to make time to enjoy all that's going on in the area as well as to spend time with friends (even better when I can do both at the same time).

I've known loyalty from friends who adjust their schedules when I'm visiting in CA so that we can spend time together during the time I'm available on my usually too-short stays. There's also the kind of loyalty where friends stand up for you even when (especially when) you're not around to stand up for yourself (like Hagrid or Harry Potter continuously do for Dumbledore).

I hope I've shown the same kind of loyalty to friends. Since being here in DC, I've definitely struggled with friends more than any other time and place in my life. I've lived here for seven years now, and I don't know that I would need more than one hand to count my friends. I mean, I know lots of people, but they seem more like acquaintances than friends. What differentiates the two? Well, acquaintances are people who you don't make plans to meet up with for a good night out, but rather who you run into while out and have a good time with. Acquaintances are also the people you let know that you'll be out at a certain place and time, and put an invite out to (usually in the form of a mass e-mail and/or mass text msg)--it'd be nice to see them, but you don't really expect them, and your level of enjoyment is most likely independent of their presence. If you have people you see only when you go out for happy hour (or other semi-organized events), they're probably acquaintances, too. Don't get me wrong, not every relationship has to be a friendship--acquaintances are important for balance.

Still, I've been feeling light on friends lately. This one person, who I've been getting to know, I thought had a lot of friends. Every time she's invited me out, she's always with a bunch of other folks. It's been great, actually, because you can see how alive her network is. I wonder though, if she has the friends I think she has. I guess I say this because just this past Friday she put a call out to folks to ask for packing help. Granted, helping people move is never all that fun, but at least this request was for packing, not moving. I haven't moved in over a year, but I still remember how nice it was when one person helped me with the furniture I couldn't have moved by myself, and another loaned me his truck so that I could move the furniture. It made such a huge difference, even if I moved everything else on my own, in my little sport coupe of a car. In any case, I had originally wanted to check out the 5th annual Women's Words Slam hosted by Michelle Sewell at Provisions Library, but when this invite came out, I couldn't in good conscious choose poetry over packing. I arrived about 10 minutes after the time on the invite, much to the surprise of the host--apparently when you say 6pm there isn't an expectation that folks will arrive before 8pm! I'm glad I did go to help pack...others didn't come until about 9pm, and in all there weren't as many bodies as I expected.

Did that night show my loyalty and the lack of loyalty of others? Hardly. One night isn't nearly enough for either of those things to solidify. Why bring it up then? Oh...I guess just to remind myself that kindness is a good quality, too.

After all, when the person I asked answered, she also made clear that what she admired was her friends' loyalty in all aspects of their life, not just towards her. That kind of loyalty is really an admirable quality--one that to me speaks to the depth of interest, care, commitment, and follow-through of a person, not only to another individual, but perhaps to groups of individuals and even larger things.

I wonder where my loyalties lie...