Friends

I have had an incredible life due in large part to a loving wife, a close-knit family, and really good friends. Now if you're one of my friends and you know who you are since you guys tend to be the only ones that read this blog, don't fret. I'm not going to use names nor will I go over specific experiences.

What I will do is discuss the importance of friendship and its value.  In life, we face different challenges daily then there are those whopper challenges that come around like a really bad storm in SoCal.  You know the type of challenge where it's hard tell the difference between the forest and the trees. When one doesn't know if he's coming or going.  When life is a blur and one isn't sure if the sun will come up tomorrow or if one even wants to see the next day.  Thankfully, these bad times are rare but when things go downhill, it's always those closest to me that take the ride on this emotional roller coaster but it's my friends and my wife (my best friend) that remind me that the ride will end and give me assurances that everything will get better.  Often, it's the comfort of just knowing that I can share what's going on inside this crazy head. I may not come out and say "dude, I hit a rough patch." but it's just knowing I can call a friend and find out what's going on and just feel better to hear him (or her) bitch about their life that brings my stuff back into perspective and helps me realize, it's not that bad.  Sometimes, misery does love company.  Then there's those times when I am sharing what's going on, and a friend will say something that totally brings me out of my funk and makes me realize that attitude really is everything and attitude begins and ends with me.

Sometimes just having a good laugh or going out and having a drink or hitting the links just makes me value my friends.  Or the texts to say hi, wassup or the emails telling me that I'm in their prayers.  It's the little things that truly count.  I don't think I could have gotten through life without my friends.  It's really made my life that much richer.  And to make my life even richer, I'm so lucky to have reconnected with friends from my formative years as well with friends during those awkward teenage years.  Then there are those friends from young adulthood who put up with me as I was trying to discover who I was and used a false bravado to mask my sheepishness.  All my friends have had to put up with both the good and the bad and that's a really big part of being a friend.  I've had tough love and gentle love in efforts to correct disruptive behaviors and all love has been appreciated even though I may not have shown it.

As I sit here, I get choked up just thinking of the wonderful experiences that I've had that were memorable only because of friends being there.  I guess it's really true what Barbra Streisand sings, "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world." I'm so very lucky.



http://youtu.be/tECCvdWEweA