It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new.
But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.
There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
Alan Cohen
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx
The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Be a Good Friend

I was thinking today ... actually I often think . I was thinking about the idea of "friends". You meet someone, you have something or a lot in common, or even nothing in common but something clicks and you have a friendship. You laugh at the same things or have the same ideas, sentiments, tastes, whatever it is but a Friend is a wonderful thing to have.

My daughter used to talk about her "friends" .. the lady at the candy store .. the kids that were nice to her, the little girl down the street whose parents were actors and had a dozen children... the little girls were allowed to go up into the attic where they tried on costumes and played make-believe for hours  on a cold or rainy day.

My son had one friend from kindergarden to today .. they were always best friends.
Of course, things change, you get a wife/husband, children .. you don't live nearby .. things change but that one sentiment is still there ... he is my friend. We are friends.

We (my husband and I) had friends in the 1970s .. the husband worked for a newspaper and they came to live in the US from the UK.
My husband had lived in the UK and I was  / am an anglophile so we got along well .. so well that today, not only am I still in touch with the friends but their daughter still emails and sends photos of her children.

Then there are the people who are here online or in person. You bond over something and you become "friends" .. if someone goes wrong, if something horrible happens, they are there for you, sending comforting words and giving you a  virtual shoulder to cry on.

But then there is that odd, strange, unusual (thank god) "friend" who writes every single day, sends gifts at appropriate times, shares confidences and then they disappear.
They were there yesterday , they are gone today.
You wait because you figure, they are busy, life happens.. it can be difficult to keep up an online friendship .. for some anyway.
Then you realize how much time has actually gone by and not a word, you send a note and ask if everything is alright.

No answer.

Now that my year of mourning has passed, maybe I am no longer considered needy for a friendship.
Maybe their lives are so busy, busier than they were when they would email me, that it is absolutely impossible to even send a few words saying I am busy. Will write later. love.
I know, that was a time consuming idea ... how can anyone find the time to type out all of those words ?
They would surely have to walk on the beach 2 minutes less if they stopped to email .
They would probably lose their job and have to move to a cheaper house somewhere on the West Coast if they wasted valuable seconds sending an email.

I have given the benefit of the doubt ... maybe they are on vacation .... that is the longest vacation I ever heard of .
Maybe they are stranded on an island with only a dog for company .. no such thing.

So I learned another lesson.
I wish these lessons would stop already .. I thought my living through 2 years of grief and solitude was enough of a lesson.

I am moving soon. Leaving this house and these beautiful surroundings and the lovely people who were here for me at the worst time of my life .. people I did not know .. people who were kind and open hearted ... Good people. Honest people.
I hope when I land in my next home .. the cats and I are honored to find friends like these people here, making those people I thought of as friends just an afterthought ..

Be a good friend. You never know what it means to the other person.








9 comments:

  1. I hope your next home is filled with sunshine, wonderful memories, the company of your sweet kitties, and new friends and adventures.
    Hugs
    Jo

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  2. It's great to have friends you can trust. I think true friendship remains live despite the distance or change of lives. I hope you will find wonderful friends in Florida!

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  3. Tamago, that is it. "True" friendships. I guess the emails and such, back and forth, were not "true" friendships and I should have realized, but I guess, I tend to think people think the way I do, or have the same ethics etc .. silly me. My cats at least continue to be true to me lol

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  4. That is strange about your friend. I hope you meet some really lovely people in Florida.

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  5. I have had this happen to me as well. When I lost my father several years ago I think I just talked too much about him (and cried)
    . Some people are very uncomfortable about death and expect us to snap out of it. Grief is a funny thing.

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  6. Fair weather friends are always hard to fathom; I had friends who moved to the U.S. from Canada & we stayed in touch visiting them on several occasions & returning the hospitality when they came here. For reasons unknown the calls dried up, we would get a Christmas card & eventually they stopped. I made several attempts via e-mail all to no avail. Sad really but I do have several true friends some dating back 60 years (we went to school together) I like to think true friendship stand the test of time & most people we meet fall into the category of acquaintance rather than friend because real friends are there for you in good times & bad & manage to show up or write to you just when you felt the world had forgotten you were still alive.
    I wish you happiness & good times ahead as you start this next chapter of your life & remember you have some lovely cyber friends - me included.

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  7. You will be very content once you get settled...
    I have high hopes for you, my friend...
    Cheers!
    Linda :o)

    ReplyDelete

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