Growing Friendships

To me, starting a friendship is like striking a match stick on a windy day sometimes. It takes a lot to keep the flame from being blown out by gusts of wind. Cupped hands, concentration, and using the body to shield the flickering yellow blue flame from it's windy threat - all parts of the arsenal of striking and lighting a match stick.

It does help that both are mutually interested in getting to know one another. There's never any fun when it is a one sided effort at connecting. In those cases, it's torture for both parties, and soon we find ways to get out of that suffocating doldrum and move on.

There's a vulnerability that comes from self-disclosure in any true friendship. It is not to be feared but expected. It is a willingness to open up one's heart and thoughts that allows another person in, into a sharing of life and experiences. It reminds me, strangely, of all things, of the great Amazon river - where her freshwater meets and mingles with the seawater.

As I grow older, I treasure friendships where there is a trust and love that grows all the more as we share and open up to one another. The love remains and even deepens the more you know the other person, for all their strengths and flaws. This is a special kind of love. To love someone warts and all.

And there is something wonderful, something almost magical, when two lives bond all the more stronger because of two people decides to open up to one another. And they stick up for one another, through thick and thin. They go on epic journeys together, and at the end of it all, they can look back at how their friendships have grown in the valleys and on the hill tops, over the different seasons of life. Such friendships are precious, hard to come by, and ought to be treasured. We can start by being such a friend to someone, today.