Seeing what people are searching for...

I have a statistical program on this blog that lets me see how readers find me. It shows me the search terms people type into Google or Yahoo when they come here because of a search.

It's interesting to note that most people who find me because of searches are searching on the terms Anam Cara (soul friends), Bashert (soul mates), loss of love, or saying goodbye to a friend. These terms seem to resonate with readers across the globe. And I can't help but wonder what this says about us as people.

So why those search terms? I think a few recent studies may hold the answers:

A recent study suggested that most people in the U.S. have about 2.08 people to whom they can talk in a crisis or about matters of deep importance. Putting aside that intriguing partial person that appears in almost all statistical studies (have you ever seen .08 of a person walking around? Why are they and their decimal or fractional twins always in studies but never in our neighborhoods?), that is a very very sad statistic. And many, many people reported they had NO ONE in whom they
could confide. Think about that for a moment...most people have only two people in the entire world with whom they can share the big things in life...the big fears and the big joys, the secret dreams, the "I-just-need-someone-to-talk-to" stuff. And so many are all alone, facing life without a single confidant.

And in another article, I read that calls to help lines and postings on advice and prayer websites are at an all-time high. Although there is no proof of the connection, it certainly appears that people are turning to annonymous voices on the end of a phone or the ultimate annonimity of the internet to take the place of close friends and close family.

So in our loneliness and isolation, we are searching online for advice on how to handle the loss of a love, or how to say good bye to a friend -- because there is no one there in the family or the neighborhood who will listen and share our pain. After all, we meet our dates online. And we join clubs and special interest groups online. Why not search for that elusive "someone who cares" there too?

And we search on the terms soul friends and soul mates in hopes that somewhere out there in the virtual world, there is someone who will tell us exactly how to meet someone who will finally understand us deeply and completely. (There are websites and books that proport to do exactly that, by the way. A step by step wikihow type guide to meeting the people the universe and G-d want us to find. Do we really believe G-d needs instructions to get our soulmate to our door?)

Have we (and by "we" I mean everyone on the planet) reached the point where we have to substitute typed messages and calls to strangers manning phone lines for genuine face to face contact? And most important, can we reverse it?

Praying with all my heart... and hearing an answer

Sometimes in the midst of everything falling apart, prayers can be answered. Prayers you never expected to see answered.

Someone you thought would be a part of your life forever and ever, and then one day, was gone...

Someone you imagined suddenly finding on your doorstep late one night, or seeing in your favourite cafe on a sunny afternoon...

Someone whose car you thought you saw at the market or the next lane over a few cars ahead on the freeway...

Someone whose name called out by a stranger in the mall made you stop and look, on the off chance it was him (or her)...

Someone you finally left in the past, after long nights of tears and countless futile bargains with G-d, or whatever you imagine the powers in the universe to be...

Sometimes, somehow, one day, you might be standing in the post office line or paying for groceries or answering e-mails in your office -- something ordinary and every day, and your phone rings. And instead of the almost-anybody-else-in-the-universe you thought it could possibly be, it's him. It's that voice you recognize from a single hello.

And you stand there, stunned, all the words you once imagined saying if you ever had the chance have suddenly vanished from your brain. And you feel like you're 10 years old and a grown-up expects you to do something that you just don't quite get. Like talk. So you squeeze out a squeeky hello, and then you wait...not having any idea what the next words should be.

You babble. And odds are they babble. They ask what's new. And even if you have a new job, new house and dozens of other new things in your life since they left, you say "nothing." Because for that instant, you are back where you were when they left and nothing really has changed.

And after only a few minutes, you hang up. Even if you used to talk for hours on end and have saved up years worth of things to say, you say good-bye. You promise to talk again. Soon. And you stand there.

Dazed.

Because the call you once prayed for every minute of every day came.

And you didn't know what to say.

Over the next day or two it sinks in...and then you start to wonder. What about the life I have now? Do I want to go back to who and what I was then? Haven't I changed and grown and learned since then. And you don't call back. And he does not call back.

And you look at the people you have in your life now, and you imagine leaving them behind. And you can't. Because they are the ones you choose to be with now. The ones who might have caught you as you fell, or met you when you arose, like the pheonix from that past sorrow...and they saw you soar for the first time as the new being you are now.

That call came on Tuesday, as I stood by my car, juggling mail to take into the post office. I almost didn't answer. It was not a good time. That it could have been him on the other end never occured to me. But in the end, I answered. I'm dealing with some legal issues left over from my now several years old divorce and thought it might be my attorney. The area code was right for it to be her. But it was not her. It was him.

And one hello was all I needed to hear to know that.

So the question is: now what? I am not who I was when we parted a year ago. I have changed. I have grown. I am stronger, sadder, happier, weaker, smarter, more confused, more contemplative, and more impulsive than I was then. I look different to myself when I look in the mirror. The sorrow has aged me, I think. But my eyes are more peaceful than I remember them looking when we were together.

For now, we are 1700 miles apart. And I cannot see that changing any time soon.


Tonight is a night for the beach. For quiet conversations about here and now and maybe even tomorrow. I think I've looked backwards long enough.

Saying Goodbye to a Friend

There are many ways to lose a friend...

Sometimes one person moves far away, and despite promises to stay in touch and visit often, the days and weeks and miles come between. Conversations become shorter and the times between them longer. Then one day, without anyone realizing it's happening, the two go from "friends" to "someone I used to know."

Other times some one comes between the two, and loyalties are challenged. A new love interest, a new spouse, a new baby...and suddenly there is no time or energy for the way things used to be. We may be sad, but we understand that people change and that sometimes a friend for one season may not be the right friend for another.

Sometimes there is a parting of ways because of a betrayal, and try though they might, the chain of trust has been shattered. And friends become strangers or even enemies.

But the hardest to take is when one never really knows what happened. One day the person is part of your life. You talk, you visit, you make plans, you laugh. And then in what seems like an instant, the other is gone. Calls are refused. Visits cease. And in the online world, your IM's are rejected. You search your heart, trying to understand what you did, what you said. You talk to friends. You go over and over in you head, trying to imagine what went wrong. But still you have no answers. If you do see the person, your questions remain unanswered. You want to know if there is something you can do to make it right again. They don't want to talk. You have ceased to exist for them.

For one of my friends, I have ceased to exist. At some point in the past few weeks, he decided to end the relationship. To close the door. And I cannot understand. But I have to accept.

I wrote early on in this blog about my efforts at non-attachment. And my limited success. And so, in the spirit of learning that spiritual skill, I offer this post. Good bye my friend. I have learned much from you and I am grateful to have had you in my life for the time the universe allowed. The door will always remain open on my side, should you ever wish to walk back through it.

I wish you well in all that comes your way. May your path be one of love and happiness and peace.