Carry On Tuesday: What is a friend?

Two friends (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What is a friend? Honestly, I don’t know anymore. I used to know, or so I thought. But, things change constantly, people change, and someone who might have been a friend to me in high school, does not necessarily mean that we would be friends now. You can have life-long friends and also period friends, those that belong in a time and place where memories and laughter should stay. Maybe, it’s just ME who has changed. I accept different things, fewer things, now that I am older.

On one hand I have a lot more tolerance, yet, I now tolerate a lot less. Can you understand that? It does seem hypocritical but it isn’t at all. I have so much more tolerance for all sorts of people and things and I don’t judge people quickly but at the same time I will not put up with things that do not serve me well, i.e. many years ago I used to put up with a friend that was funny but also very negative; a person who gossiped incessantly and made me feel bad about myself. I didn’t like who I was when I was with this person. Our friendship ended, not in a fight or a fury and while I no longer have her occasional funny self, I also don’t have her negative pathology weighing me down. It’s been years now and I don’t miss one thing about our past friendship, in fact I feel a lot happier.

I can meet a new friend in the blink of an eye and it will be mutual, we will laugh, enjoy the same things and feel an instant connection. With all good intentions to get together, it won’t happen and I have learned to be alright with that. It used to hurt me terribly but I have grown up and old and I understand that things sometimes do not work out even though everything seemed right. Things happen, if it doesn’t work, let it go. Life is complicated. It wasn’t meant to be….move on.

So, to answer what is a friend you need to look at yourself first. What is a friend to you? What do you need in a friendship? I need support and trust, dependability and warmth. I not only need to like that person but to like the person I am with you. You learn, you have to like and love yourself first.

Friendship is a gift, a slow, warming present, shared over a cup of coffee, or iced water and over time, if it is meant to be, it evolves with trust and the deepening begins like the wrinkles on my face, etched with memory, mutual understanding and love.

Carry on Tuesday: The long and winding road…..

English: Opuntia macrocentra, Jardín de Cactus, Guatiza, Lanzarote, Spain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You can’t be perfect all the time. I thought I had to try to be in the past as a child. Now I don’t. No one is perfect. Like recently pressing the Publish key first instead of the Save key. It’s okay. Really, nobody cares and if I care (that first audible intake of breath) it’s a waste of my time. My life. I’m not going there. Not ever again. It won’t come automatically, that’s okay.

I will be nicer to myself and easier on myself and everyone else too. Hey,  I don’t know how much longer I have on this earth or how much longer anyone else has. I just won’t care as much, not as intensely, maybe you learn that with age or being hurt or just choosing not to care anymore. I wish I had known that thirty years ago but you learn when you truly need to learn, when it is crucial.  I want to surround myself with those that love me and simplify my life, positive people. I want to subtract, without drama, the negative people.  It’s initially hard to accept when you’re in the middle of some dreaded tsunami and you are swept up but when things finally settle down, you learn. I’ve learned to inhale on one, hold, exhale on two. Repeat as needed. There’s always a way to work things out, always. I’ve found that out with family, it’s not what it used to be but it works. Will everybody be 100 percent happy? Probably not but if we are all 75 percent happy it’s a good deal.

While traveling I’ve always taken the direct route to get from here to there.  The direct route is simple and less risky. But, I am learning to take some risks even if it feels uncomfortable at first. It should feel uncomfortable, you should wriggle around with a few pangs of anxiety and then….then you grow and learn. I have decided that from now on I am taking the long and winding road, to make detours, to appreciate beauty in its simplicity. That’s what adventure and growing are all about. Taking a chance and growing up. Taking the direct route, as I have done, is the easy way but it feeds on your insides and makes you feel used and destroyed, and hurt. All I needed to do was say “no” and step back. Firmly. It’s been a long journey and it isn’t over yet, I’m sure.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, we keep learning. Sometimes it’s painful, most times it’s uncomfortable to do something completely different from what you have done for your whole life. I tried it on for size, I moved my body around, adjusting my skin as if it was attached directly with a sharp, silver needle to every cell, like the pricks of a cactus. It poked, it prodded and I learned to work with it, not against it. In the end, not only was it comfortable but it made me shine, from the inside out.