2b- Friends

I think that a large part of who we are is whom we love- whom we choose to love. Most of the people that we end up loving are not genetically related to us. We end up loving people that we can relate to and talk to; people that accept us and engage us.

Everyone needs something different from their friendships.  I need intellectual stimulation and lots and lots of laughter. I need the people I keep around me that look for and enjoy life's the shades gray. They generally see the black and white, not as opposites, instead as a circular continuum. The number of grays that they see are  unquantifiable. I love those kinds of people.

They never really take themselves that seriously because they recognize the world is a pretty serious place. They know that to be able to navigate it successfully you have to be fluid in thought and actions.  My friends generally realize that facts and truth are also pretty subjective, you can manipulate data to prove about any point, so what is the point? J

We would make a great team of lawyers, my friends and I, except that we could care less about the outcome.  It’s the teasing out of multiple sides that brings the joy. When we get together we don’t need television nor games nor other outsourced stimulation.  The conversation is the thing.  I love my friends. 

There is also something to be said for people who don’t need to be told the story because they were a part of it. On the average the handful of people that I count as my friends (as opposed to the circle of people that I hang out with) have been around for at least a decade. Some much longer, some much less. Average is about 10 years.  They usually get the blow by blow of my life as it happens.

I create space friends in my life.  I am ridiculously busy, like “every minute is sacred” kind of  busy.  But I purposefully schedule time in my week every week for my friends. This is important to me. They are important to me, so I create the space for them.  “People make time for what is important to them.”

I wish everyone had the depth in friendships that I do.  They are friendships so deep that they remind me of the deep sea fish in the bottom of the ocean that are so immersed in the depths that they don’t need eyes. If I could bequeath the world one thing it would be that everyone had a handful of friends like that.  The kind of people that know your faults but are blind to them because they understand you on a whole other level.  They love you on a deeper level.  They choose you and your quirks.  And that kind of acceptance feels like home. True friends always feel like home.

Friends are pretty awesome.

-Dewb