Thoughts on Friendship

I have mentioned this blog to only one of my friends IRL. This person is someone who I trust with the deepest darkest secrets of my soul. Someone who has seen me grow through the almost 13 years we have known each other, and who pushes me to keep growing, and who isn't afraid to let me know when I've messed up. I haven't seen this person in over 5 years; our connections these days are limited to email.

This friend who recently described our friendship as an old holey sweatshirt...one you don't wear all the time, but when you need it, it's perfectly cozy and ever so comfortable. Like that sweatshirt, we can go months without communicating but then when we do it's like we never had stopped. There are holes in that sweatshirt as reminders of the rocky patches which have affected our friendship, and yet, the friendship is still holding together.

I just want to say thank you to this person for broadening my views in so many ways, and also for sticking with me when I've not been very nice or when I've been too wrapped up in the immediacy of my life to remember that there are others out there who care and want to know what's going on in my life and to also share their lives with me.

I also want to say how much I admire my friend for having the inner strength to refuse to let other people and circumstances define their inner sense of self and what is right and decent. It is one of the things I admire most about my friend. That and how my friend takes the time to think through things where I am happy to usually only skim the surface (reference broadening/growing above).

One of these days I hope to be the person my friend thinks I can be. Until then, I have a terrific example to follow.