Thanks For Always Putting On My Lifejacket.....
Friendship is born at the moment when one man or woman says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . I’ve always been a big fan of C.S. Lewis and the reason for that, well one of the reasons, was this quote. I saw these words in one of his books, ‘The Four Loves’ after a friend introduced me to Lewis after my dad passed. I was so intrigued because I simply love how he described friendship and how right he was, that it's a special sort of love. So this week’s letter as you may have guessed is all about Friendship…And therefore it’s all about YOU! Yes YOU! The magic human that comes here to my writing home and enters with love and kindness and takes the time to read my words!
Friendship as in Friend-SHIP - of course I love that it has a vehicle of transportation in its make up because as you might have noticed I do love a good transport analogy when I’m thinking and talking about life. If it’s not a bus, a car, a boat or an aeroplane I’m referring to when I’m deep in my thoughts, it wouldn’t be me at all would it? So if I was to take the word FRIENDSHIP and break in down into Lou’s thoughts…This is how I see the word working out….Let’s put me on a ship out in the wide open ocean (yahoooo I’m over here) and imagine that I have no idea where I’m going or what’s happening (aaaahhhh I don’t even know how to swim - it’s an Irish thing - a topic for another day), alone on that ship I would be highly anxious and no doubt terrified too but to change those feelings into much more positive feelings would be to place a friend standing beside me on the deck. Then all of a sudden, my isolated addled anxiety would reduce instantly and like pouring water over a raging fire, extinguishing the terror & replacing with peace. Add to the friend’s personality that they are calm and cool and take life in their stride and all of a sudden what could have been a terrible situation and experience for me alone, it’s flipped on its head and it becomes a much improved all round opportunity to embrace my friend and see where we end up together (not alone).
All of a sudden, things are not terrible. Things are not unbearable. They are quite the opposite and I can tell you, without a friend…..not only a journey on a ship would be lonely, but the path of life would be unbearable in so many ways. The ship in this instance represents moments in your life where you feel wobbly but once a friend steps in, you see it all differently. You can feel the life jacket. You can feel the warm embrace. You can feel the safety. You are indeed blessed with the magic of a friend-ship & once you find that friend, you will do everything in your power to hold onto them because life on this earth is not meant to be endured alone, but enjoyed together. But more often than not, we can find ourselves, tipped out of the ship in life and it is only those who notice us and love us who can truly save us.
See the thing about this world is that as each day passes, the fate of the day is often decided on the roll of a dice. You don’t even know it’s being rolled most of the time but it is. You might not think that every morning you get up or even every night when you go to bed, but really life is a gamble in all those moments that pass us by in a blink. Life is wrapped up in chance. Life is wrapped up in fate. Life can be really really hard. Today as I write this, two news stories broke in Ireland…One of a young teenage jockey who died in Kerry, a charming young lad from a really well known horse training family and the second story of eight year old twins and their eighteen year old sister murdered in Tallaght in county Dublin. Like where do you even begin to process those stories and who am I, just someone looking from a distance as these tragedies take down families left, right and centre. One story, a story of an an unfortunate twist of fate….a family whose passion and love for horses is known all around the world and now the destroyer of their being and no doubt their future happiness in ruins forever more. Life will never be the same for them. The second story, I am not going to give any opinion because I do not know the background, but somewhere within this situation someone made a decision and has brought hell upon so many. Fate and freewill causing so much damage and so much pain on people who probably went to bed thinking it was just another ordinary day before their lives changed forever.
Living on this earth is no easy journey that is for sure. It can be messy and on other days it can be ordinary. Life can be magical and on other days it can be chaotic. Life can be confusing and on other days life can just be. Life can be as quiet as an empty school hall or it can be as loud as the ocean. Life will chose to push you around whatever way it wants and as individuals, we do not have much say in those moves on the chess board. The only place I feel we have control is in how we react. What chess piece we take next and where we move it. Do we take the game and turn it upside down or do we take a moment and think about our next act? Do we react in haste? Or maybe we take a breathe and look to our side to see if our friend is there? What do they think? How do they feel we should move? Do they think we are making the right call and feel as we do? Friendship is born in this moment & reborn every time you choose to turn to your friend and as Lewis categorises it, when we look to each other and say ‘you too!’ That’s it. That’s the magic of friendship and my god am I grateful for it. It’s all easy in life when things are going well for you but when the ship shakes and you don’t know where you are going, that is the time that friendship is the lifesaver of the whole story.
With life serving us so many harsh situations, there really is only one antidote and that is my favourite mode of transport from darkness into light & the topic of this week’s substack - Friendship. Friendship is so simple yet it holds within it so many magical aspects that can transform and transcend one’s life. How do I know? Because I’ve been blessed with it & I hope in my own way, I reach out in as much love and kindness to which I receive. See friendship is when we look towards each other. Friendship is not about looking away. Not about walking away. Not about turning away or disappearing into the dark when things get tough which in recent years I think modern society and relationships as a whole have somewhat developed a leniency towards. I don’t like this about our modern times. Our weak excuses to not turn up for each other when someone needs us. I don’t know why this has happened but after our experience with Covid, you would hope we would be doing the opposite and we would be running towards each other. Instead we have got lazy in our ways and it’s not good for anyone. You would have hoped we would have learned to value those who notice us.
And in fairness, I don’t want to sound harsh, because there are so many good people out there but when looking at the numbers of beautiful people we are losing here to suicide alone, I just think we need to do better. Last year in 2021, we lost close to four hundred loved ones from families through suicide in Ireland, three hundred and two men and ninety seven women and I just feel heartbroken for everyone with those numbers. Husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, partners, best friends, all broken and out of our reach. I know way too many good people gone before me in this way. The only peace I feel is that they are no longer in pain and Granny is now sitting close by them holding their hand. Could a stronger rooted society watching out for each other have saved these people? I don’t know the answer but what I do know, on the days, I feel low, on the days my tears fill up and in the moments in life where I felt the waves crashing on my face, I know how I survived those moments, the hand of friendship has saved me every time. The listening ear. The people who noticed or knew things were heavy. The tightly squeezed hug saying it’s going to be ok is the life jacket of my friendships. Not to forget, the friendly smile of a random stranger passing me by or someone simply holding the door for me as I head into the shop….the little moves made by us humans can actually have a huge impact that only the lonely know. And when I say lonely, I don’t mean a specific group of humans because as I opened this piece, bad times and worries are today’s broken and tomorrow it will be somebody else’s pain so nobody escapes the darkness in this world. It might be the only fair strike along the path that we all meet our own fate, our own battles, our own waterloos. Nobody escapes!
And see when the world strikes out, and knocks you over, there is only one survival mode that will help you keep afloat and that is the hand of another. But to have a good friend, one must be a good friend. And to be a good friend, one must have one too. I feel when thinking about this topic there is a must have, essential ingredient to a long lasting good friendship and that ingredient is effort. As defined in the dictionary (ok..ok…I mean google but the dictionary just seems like the right word here), effort is defined very simply as ‘a vigorous or determined attempt’.
Let’s slow that right down and just think about that in regards to friendship. The term ‘vigour’, to have vigour, to put in effort, energy and enthusiasm into something. The word ‘determined’; to be free from doubt about doing something and the word ‘attempt’; defined as making an effort to achieve or complete something. (By the way as you may have noticed I’m obsessed about the definitions of words, even if I think I know the word, I will always look it up, as I always seem to learn something new about them…everyday is a school day). So then the final definition to look up here would be a ‘friend’ in which a friend is defined as a person who has a strong liking for and trust in another person who is not a member of their family. So let’s take those magical definition and put them together and see what we get. We get someone who is vigorous and determined to try and help someone they have a strong liking or trust for. Who does that sound like? Does that sound like your friend? Does that sound like you? Take a moment and think of someone who is this for you? Would you be the person you are today without them? Would they be? Are they someone who you know would put on your lifejacket if you panicked? Are they someone you lean towards when you don’t know what move to make next on the chessboard? Have they been a light when all you could see was the dark? Do you know what? I know the answer to this. The answer is yes…because you are that too. It takes a good friend to have a good friend. And that is why you are loved. That is why people turn to you. That is why I wrote this substack to remind you, that you are saving lives everyday by just being you. By looking up. By making the effort to connect. By stretching out your hand of friendship to someone who notices makes all the difference. By holding that door for the next person coming in the shop. Maybe if we were reminded more of the gift that is friendship, and the superpower that lies within it when we have someone by our side, we might not lose so many to the quiet of the mind when it is left idle to think too long about the empty space. Keep stepping in beside each other. Keep filling in that space. Keep chatting. The little hello’s mean everything. Those little texts might be the lifeline someone needs to know they are seen. Keep moving closer. Keep taking those journeys on those ships. Keep smiling. Keep laughing. Keep loving. Keep looking up!
You might not think you are making a difference but I can promise you, YOU ARE!
I’m so grateful for YOU! I see YOU! I am so lucky to have YOU in my life! I will always vogrously and determinedly move towards you to remind you how lucky I am to have you in my life!! And I wish and hope our friendship will last a lifetime...until we are separated between heaven and earth and for the remainder of that time, our hearts will be filled with the joy we shared as we travelled on the seas of life on our very own friend-ship. Love is forever, moments are like a roll of a dice if you’re not watching but memories and good friends will last a lifetime.
Until our next meeting at the letter box,
Love and light always,
Keep Looking Up!
Your friend always,
Lou x
PS. I’ll always be here to put on your lifejacket!
**I just want to include a special thanks and shoutout to two of my very good writing friends here in the Substack world & in my world……Lauren Deborah and Tracy O’Brien who were a wonderful support to me last Monday at our first zoom meet up & with their guidance and very lovely personalities they helped me not break the internet! If anyone could break the internet, it would be me so thanks so much Lauren and Tracy for your technical and hosting gifts. Ye are two absolute starbars and I would be lost without ye in my life & you are officially part of the Facebook Family now.I really really appreciated ye being there in so many ways!
The evening was so much fun and you could sense the positive energy and pure love all across the screen from everyone who attended & a BIG thank YOU to all who came along, without ye…i’m not sure where I would be to be honest without all ye wonderful people in my life. I’m going to pop the girls substack links here down below & I’d love if you might subscribe to them as they are gifted beyond words when it comes to their own writing as well as star shining personalities! I promise you, their words will always lift your heart & on our theme of all themes, will keep you looking up!
Until next time,
Thank YOU for reading all the way down here and please feel free to comment or share this letter. It means so much to me.
Lou over and out x
A wonderful letter, thank you Lou 🙏
I am so glad to count you as a friend, it is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to support you on this journey.
Lots of love my friend 😘😘
Lou, you’re like a little miracle. Thank you. Xoxoxo