Friends. They're love, they're support, they're intertwined with happiness and hope and all things positive and trustworthy in life. They may be family, or they may be those you've actively chosen as family, you may have contactly with them daily, or weekly, or sometimes only sporatically, but they're a needed, heartwarming, necessary part of life. The ones that are true friends, you have for a lifetime. No matter how far away you travel from each other, even if circumstances create long periods of time without contact, you're still close when you see each other or speak again. Those are the best kind.
Friendship is a relationship though, and like all relationships, it takes work. It's easy to be there for the good times, the happy moments ... but what about the difficult times? I'm not referring to listening to venting about a bad day or crazy boss. I'm talking about major stressful unfortunate life-changing occurrences, that you may not understand or even agree with. How do you stay friends, stay close, trusting, communicative friends, in those circumstances? It may require opening one's mindset to alternate views of life and how it could or should be lived. It may require doing a bit of homework on one's own to gain understanding of what the other person is physically and/or mentally going through. It could even require a level of patience and listening, even forcing them to be aware that you're there through calls or texts or emails or stopping by .. to the point that you've never had to employ with any other person for any reason. What if that level of patience and understanding and open-mindedness to things that you don't understand or agree with was needed for weeks, or possibly even months? Could you keep it up? Could you continue to be as close as possible to that person? Is friendship, true friendship, worth that level of long-term effort?
Everyone's answer will probably lie in which side of that equation they're on. In any situation, unless you're actually faced with it, there's no way to truly know how you'd act .. or react. I myself wonder how easy it would be to stick with a sympathetic, open-minded mindset on all things, if faced with something I didn't agree with or understand happening to someone that, under all other circumstances, I hold dear. On the other side of the equation, I can say that those who truly attempt to reach out and stick around without judgement and with an extra shoulder handy, despite my tendency to react to a stressful life situation by attempting to become a hermit, are loved, trusted and appreciated more than they'll ever realize or I'll ever be able to voice. Friendship. It appears in many forms and there are all levels of it. I suppose both sides of it simply boil down to someone's purpose for having it, and if it means enough to you to fight for it .... whichever side of the equation you happen to be on.
~ The Girl In The Little Black Dress
Friendship is a relationship though, and like all relationships, it takes work. It's easy to be there for the good times, the happy moments ... but what about the difficult times? I'm not referring to listening to venting about a bad day or crazy boss. I'm talking about major stressful unfortunate life-changing occurrences, that you may not understand or even agree with. How do you stay friends, stay close, trusting, communicative friends, in those circumstances? It may require opening one's mindset to alternate views of life and how it could or should be lived. It may require doing a bit of homework on one's own to gain understanding of what the other person is physically and/or mentally going through. It could even require a level of patience and listening, even forcing them to be aware that you're there through calls or texts or emails or stopping by .. to the point that you've never had to employ with any other person for any reason. What if that level of patience and understanding and open-mindedness to things that you don't understand or agree with was needed for weeks, or possibly even months? Could you keep it up? Could you continue to be as close as possible to that person? Is friendship, true friendship, worth that level of long-term effort?
Everyone's answer will probably lie in which side of that equation they're on. In any situation, unless you're actually faced with it, there's no way to truly know how you'd act .. or react. I myself wonder how easy it would be to stick with a sympathetic, open-minded mindset on all things, if faced with something I didn't agree with or understand happening to someone that, under all other circumstances, I hold dear. On the other side of the equation, I can say that those who truly attempt to reach out and stick around without judgement and with an extra shoulder handy, despite my tendency to react to a stressful life situation by attempting to become a hermit, are loved, trusted and appreciated more than they'll ever realize or I'll ever be able to voice. Friendship. It appears in many forms and there are all levels of it. I suppose both sides of it simply boil down to someone's purpose for having it, and if it means enough to you to fight for it .... whichever side of the equation you happen to be on.
~ The Girl In The Little Black Dress
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