Friendships can be many things: sounding boards, touchstones, shoulders to cry on, partners in crime. All friendships share one thing in common: a mutual sense of necessary relationship. Friends understand (consciously or not) the length and breadth of their mutual devotion. If they don’t, then it’s not truly a friendship. It’s an association with potential.
There are those, like my wife, who make friends easily. People like her make quick connections and maintain them over years and miles. She regularly talks/FaceTimes/emails/texts with folks from childhood, college, and her long military service. My wife has the uncanny ability to recall EVERYONE’s name in addition to where and how they met, which life events they shared with us, and when I first (or last) met them. I’m lucky if I recall one in five of the names she mentions.
I am one of those whose longstanding friends can be counted on one hand (perhaps with a few extra digits added on). I just don’t connect quickly nor do I nurture every friendly relationship. Oh, I stay friendly with lots of people. But friends with whom I share worries, joys, hopes, and dreams are a tiny collection. Most likely because I can’t remember more than half-a-dozen names and faces without a tag or badge or pin on their chest spelling it out for me.
Each of us make and keep friends differently. While I envy my wife’s ability to have a broad array, I cherish the few friendships I have. My friends are people I’d pick up at the hospital (or police station) at midnight. They’re people I want to take trips with, drink and laugh with, get into and out of trouble with. I love my friends, scarce though they are.
So, if you’re reading this, and we’ve met and hung out or shared a drink, but we haven’t seen each other face-to-face in over a year. Or, we only see each other at certain regular events, etc., don’t think we’re not friends. We are, but we’re friends in the making. We will both judge if the relationship is worth growing. I hope we agree it is. I’d like to count you on hand number two as a real friend.
Thank you to my friends. You know who you are. And my thanks to you, for wanting to be a friend, too.
Amen!!
Thank you!