Several years ago, a friend - one of the semi-imaginary ones, someone I've met in person a few times, but a person I mostly know on-line - sent me a link to a poem. The subject of her email read: "because I'm feeling sappy this evening" and the poem was about sisters. It's titled "I wish I Had More Sisters" (and it's by Brenda Shaughnessy, and was in the New Yorker in 2010).
Here's the thing. It is wonderful to have friends and relatives. It is wonderful to call people on the telephone and to have them over for dinner and to swap plants with your next door neighbor. It's gratifying to send silly postcards and to mail books across the country. It's terrific to hang out with my sister and my sister-in-law getting my annual pedicure. It is grounding to have friends that you have known since 1977. But I feel, really, that my life is infinitely richer as a result of the many people - mostly women - I've had the chance to know since I started blogging and hanging out on Facebook. And that's the reason I held onto that email for so long - it's been in my inbox since 10/31/2010. That poem, and my friend's sentiment in sending it out to me and others, cemented that feeling of sisterhood, togetherness, "Each of us could be all of us."
Here's to a new year - full of friendship, sisterhood, connection and joy. And to finding forgotten gems when you clean out your inbox.
7 comments:
Awwwwww! Hugs from another imaginary friend!
YES. YES. YES.
I feel this way about so many friends I've made through the blogging and FB communities--and you are a particularly significant example for me.
To be honest, most of the time, I'd rather hang out with these friends than people in real life. As you note, there is still room for the real-life stuff, of course, but I get great gratification from the online friends. YES.
I feel the same way. Happy New Year, Maggie.
Oh, yes, that's all of us you're talking about. A good sentiment to hold onto, for sure.
Agreed. Happy new year!
I don't even know where to draw those lines any more--and haven't for a long time. Some of my best semi-imaginary friends (apart from bloggers!) are people I never quite knew while we were at school together but on FB and, yes, through blogging, we connected in entirely unexpected ways. (Ahem.) And there are people who in theory I know because they are in my real-life world but in practice we interact much more on line than in person. It's all just connection, I think. And yes, my life is better for it!
Yeah.
Post a Comment