Friends

I came to the realization that holding on in life is a far better option than letting go. Well in this case I’m talking about friendship.

Loosing a friend or friends would be like letting go of life's dreams. If I decided to give up and let go of some of my hopes it would come close to what it must feel like to loose a friend. A hand in hand walk; dreams can float on open, wide, clear oceans when one has the knowledge that it is well nourished and accompanied with the flag of loving friendship.

Never having been one for big crowds nor the type that surrounds her with nail-painting-tea-drinking girl friends, I thought of the meaning and power of friendship.

A few people have made a really big difference in my life. I consider them friends. The older ones with wisdom of years in their eyes, the younger ones full of vibrant life and spirit and ones like me falling in and far between the rest of them. Never a crowd, but a group of people that would make a fire crackle should they be put around a table laden with food and wine.

From friends I gain inner-strength and laughter. Regardless of gender, they know how to give and receive. They allow me to chat unselfconsciously or incessantly... about stuff I don't want to talk about with family or work colleagues. I can safely make confessions of how I always secretly wanted to be a novelist or violinist, still not know what I want to do when I grow up, about relationships, tell them how I gave up coloring my hair but started doing it again, or that aged 33 I still have not the foggiest idea how to bake a soufflé or stop swearing.

Friends are real people. They tell me secrets which they know will be safe with me, being a friend. They also know about insecurities and how to pop a cork graciously when good news is shared. They are unexplainable things, with a baffling capacity of love and tender understanding and something that one wants to keep close to one’s heart, like a precious stone or jewel.

A friend who sensed that I needed some reaffirmation, decided to return some “wisdom” previously sent by me:

It was written like follows:
To quote a wise and dear friend:
“You know the strange thing is, I think that disappointment (heartbreak, high expectations of ourselves and others, impossible dreams, etc) will always follow us. I will never understand why it has to be part of this life; maybe it’s part of our evolving status and a steep learning curve to learn to survive life’s many impossible situations.”

Followed by a little thoughtful shared wisdom from the friend:
Let me add one thing to it:
Disappointments are the result of exactly these high expectations of ourselves and others but as we don’t want to change that aspiration of ours lets be aware of how these experiences might twist learning curves to gradually petrify us unless they are kept in shape by an ingenuous mind...