The chances are, however, that if you have lived to at least middle age then you've met more than one firefly - a person that enters your life for a brief period, has an impact on you (small or significant) and then abruptly disappears from your life, often for different reasons but usually because they don't "fit" into your way of life. I had this experience myself recently. It's certainly not the first time I encountered a firefly. While at college I met more than my fair share. I remember a guy called Stuart who was a very demonstrative individual. It always felt like he was rehearsing for some elaborate role in a play written by a Russian classicist and performed at a well trodden theatre. There was an "actor" vibe about him and his mannerisms seemed lifted almost entirely out of the film Withnail and I. He was a friend of my housemate (and close friend) Simon and one time we all dropped LSD and Stuart proceeded to start re-enacting scenes from Withnail and I, including Withnail's famous speech near the end of the movie where he was walking through the park (see below). The more Stuart got into the role, the louder he got, until he messed up one of the lines, talking about the majestic "fundament" rather than "firmament", which, for some reason, put all of us into a state of hysterical laughter. Although it was mostly drug induced.
The most challenging fireflies I dealt with in my life were when it came to female friends or lovers. I remember well a girl called Lyla who I briefly liaised with at college but decided to end it with after only a few weeks. I remember being disturbed by her recounting to me how many guys she had slept with. Despite only being 20 she had had more than 40 sexual partners. For some reason, I decided that she was "cheap" for this reason alone. I was young, naive in the ways of love and highly judgemental. Weeks after I ended it with her she drunkenly accosted me in the student union bar,accusing me of contributing towards her poor degree result. I didn't know what to say so I said very little. That was typical of the young, timid guy that I was - I was easily mortified if I offended someone or had a negative impact on their life and I was also not yet grizzled by life experiences or able to look at things holistically.
So, just recently I had a short I guess you could call "relationship" (for want of a better word) with a woman I met on PoF. In the interests of fairness, I won't name her (she knows who she is) but I felt drawn to her because, like me, she struggled with keeping her life on a straight course. She is a fellow addict and although our substances of choice differed, it was clear that we both shared some devastating consequences of the effect of our addiction on our lives. We dated a few times but unfortunately we fell out because, although I have been working on my recovery from addiction and not using any substances aside from those medically prescribed, she is still actively using. As has been well documented, addicts who are caught in the maelstrom of addiction and active using, usually attract a considerable degree of chaos into their lives. Along with this chaos is a very powerful urge to self-destruct. I know this feeling all too well because it was with me throughout my using and is something I still feel in recovery. The difference is I have worked on quelling this feeling and accepting my shortcomings. It's been a hard lesson to learn but also I have come to realise, painfully, that it is one that can only be learned by the individual going through it. I shared this notion with this firefly who came into my life briefly and who shared with me the pain of her own addiction.
I was also acutely aware that I could show her the door that leads to a place of calmness and contentment, where you don't have to be trapped in a cycle of using - where the shame, the guilt and the despair just perpetuate this state of misery..but I could not make her walk through it. She alone had to make that choice. Unfortunately, she chose to lash out at me one night after a bout of heavy drinking and I sadly knew all-too-well where that anger came from. It comes from a place of sadness and fear, low self esteem and deep insecurity.
So, as abruptly as she entered my life, she left it again. And despite sharing intimate secrets of the source of our pain and emptiness with each other, ultimately it amounted to nothing. Or that's what it seemed at first as I tried to make sense of why she was part of my existence for such a short space of time.
Then I started to think of all the other people I had met during my life who were also fireflies and followed a "here today, gone tomorrow" mantra. Each one of them taught me something about myself and my relationship with the world and with other people. Stuart taught me that within each person there is a jester archetype, the fool of the tarot cards who just wants to express his playfulness and creativity with the world. He taught me that it's ok to express your eccentricity. So many people are afraid of this but they needn't be. I was grateful to him for that gift.
And my most recent firefly, K, she taught me that there are people who share the same sense of suffering as I do. Some people feel the world so strongly that it makes them recoil, in the same way that you would flinch when touching something uncomfortably hot. She also taught me that addiction affects people from every walk of life and, even though I kind of knew this already, I felt her presence was like a mirror being held up to my soul. I had a strong urge help her and I did try for a little while but it was obvious that she was not yet at a stage where she wanted to embrace getting better. I know this from being there myself. I would tell people, "Yes I really do want to stop using" while inside I couldn't wait for them to piss off and leave me alone so I could get high.
I am grateful to K. She opened a curtain for me. She showed me that those parts of myself that hurt also hurt the same places in others. She tested my patience, my compassion, my humility and, most importantly, my recovery.
And I will be forever grateful to her for the brief time she was a part of my life.
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
