A Road Less Travelled

I forgot to write this post yesterday. It seems a bit silly anyway at the moment, but hey, at least it’s making me write blog posts. See, Gabrielle being gone has not been as big a deal as I thought it might be. Sure I miss her sometimes, but I rarely actually think, “Hey, I wish Gabrielle were here right now so I could do/say xyz.”

Gabrielle and I get filed as best friends. I try to avoid the term ‘best friends’ on general principles, but sometimes it’s hard to get away from, if only because the English language is insufficient on the subject.

You’ve heard that Eskimos have some large number (which I’ve forgotten) of words for snow? Which makes sense, because after all, they have a lot of it to sort out so they need more specific words for it. How many words does English have for ‘friend’? The thesaurus gives me twenty-one, but of those three are Quaker/religious, six are just words for individuals in general, and the remaining twelve range from associate to ally–words that imply some level of interaction, but not necessarily a warm relationship. (This is related to my gripe that there is no good way to say ‘phileo’ in English, which really bugs me sometimes.)

Anyway, when you’ve spent four years honing your ability to communicate with another person primarily in grunts and facial expressions, it’s hard to find an English term other than ‘best friends’ that adequately conveys how you get along. (You’ll note, though, that according to this usage of the term it’s entirely possible to have lots of best friends all at the same time.)

Before Gabrielle left I mentioned to several other friends that I was going to miss her while she was gone for five whole weeks. I was kind of expecting to get brushed off and told that five weeks wasn’t that big a deal and I needed to grow up and get over it. Instead everyone seemed to think this was perfectly normal and they were sympathetic.

I’m surviving just fine without Gabrielle. But I have realized that without her being just down the street it’s a lot more work not to turn into a reclusive hermit. I haven’t yet, mind you (never mind the fact that I’ve watched twelve entire episodes of Forever Knight since she left…), but it’s more work. So really, maybe it’s not a big deal that Gabrielle’s gone for five weeks. But that Gabrielle usually is here, and that we’re actually friends… Yeah, I’d say that really is a big deal.