In a beautiful place, I'm thinking about friendships past and present. As I've noted before, I was never schooled on friendship, and that schooling would have been helpful. It's important to talk about what friendship is and how we can build strong friendships over time. I plan to do that with my students this year. Friendships are a most important consideration for children, and by giving them the space and time to talk about friendship, I hope that they'll be better at developing and sustaining friendship over time. Friendship is an important element of wellness too.
As I sit in this beautiful space, I'm thinking of good friends past and present, and what made those friendships strong, meaningful, and satisfying. My very best friends are people who have been in my life almost my entire life. They are forgiving, helpful, and kind. They know me well and have my best interests in mind. I feel the same way towards them. The strength of our friendship lies in the great time we have spent together over the years as well as similar values and goals.
Friends lost were mainly friends lost at times of significant hurt--times when I hoped my friends would be there for me and they weren't, or times when friends thought I'd be there and I wasn't. At these points of loss, my friends or I were vulnerable due to deep hurt that we did not understand, pay attention to, or able to help out with. These vulnerable times made us weak, and, in some cases, led to a break in friendship.
As I think back to these fractures, I am thinking about how I could have avoided this.
First, it's important to tread gently with friends. Like all of us, our friends are vulnerable, imperfect people who have a deep, unique set of needs, longings, strengths, and challenges. We have to be sensitive to that and always treat our friends as the good people they are. That means we can't overload them with our problems, speak harshly to them, or ignore them and their issues. We have to be sensitive in the time we spend with friends as that builds a stronger foundation.
Then, it's important that friends are not all talk, but action too. Choosing friends who truly enjoy what you like to do is essential as this builds strong friendships. Rather than friendships build on storytelling alone, it's great to build friendships built on shared events, quests, and activities. This lays a strong foundation for friendship.
Friendship demands time as well. We have to make time for friends if we want to sustain those friendships.
Life for most of us is a busy affair as we do our work and take care of our loved ones. Friendship, in light of this busyness, is a luxury to be honored and cared for--a luxury we can all afford if we make friends who want to share in life's stories and adventures with us.