About Friendship...

I had a lot of time to think about friendship this past week while visiting my home town. I had hoped to see several friends while there but ended up falling short of my plans. It reminded me of what life was like in the past when making time for friends was an afterthought.

When I was a 'career' woman and living life, friends were people that could fit in to my schedule. If I wasn't too busy working, shuffling kids, attending seminars or taking well needed vacations, I could make time for them. Larry and I remember meeting one couple that we had really hoped to spend time with so we tried week after week to find time in our schedules to get together. We lived 30 minutes apart but it seemed like an impossible task. It wasn't until we were on vacation - 200 miles from home - that we ran in to them. I think all of us were struck with the sadness of our mutual too-busy schedules.

Our dear friend Gordy used to say, if you have more friends than you have fingers then a) you don't know the meaning of friendship, or b) you are a freak of nature. I never really understood that until I had the type of friends that I think he considered finger-worthy. It took me years to understand what he meant because to me, friends were all of the acquaintances that came and went through the doors of my life. I don't think I would have ever been able to say I had a "BFF" and it was never really clear whether the 'friends' I had picked, had picked me. I think that this is a sad artifact of living an upwardly mobile lifestyle. If friendship isn't part of that plan, then you probably won't find time for it.

I regret that I lived my life this way for far too many years. Coupled with the fact that I didn't know myself well enough to make myself fit for a long lasting and intimate friendship. (Anything less than that is a relationship of casual acquaintance).

Of all of the things I am thankful for, it is learning how important friendship really is in a persons life. Larry and I have always had an incredible friendship between us but it is so important for each of us to have deep bonds with other people. In the process of changing our lives and slowing down, we have finally found out just how sweet having friends to share our dreams, hurts, struggles and joys with can be! Where we used to have great intentions to see our friends, today, we see them. We are doing life with these people and it's made our life so much sweeter. I wish I would have learned this lesson sooner and had been a better friend to those that considered me theirs.

To all of my friends, I'm so thankful for you. I cherish you and I can't imagine life without you!

Jan