Friend

By definition means: a person attached to another by feelings or affection or personal regard.

To me a friend means so much more I really don’t where to start. I am not sure I can actually explain all the different friendships I have. I have friendships with people I knew in elementary school, people I met at church camp in middle school to only meet again in high school and who I swore I would NOT be friends with (mainly because she was stealing my thunder – this said friend is actually my best friend today and has been for the past 15 years), people I have at one time or another not liked very much and I am sure the feeling was mutual – I might even venture to say some people I thought I could do physical harm to – the extent of that physical harm was a good hair pull! I am friends with people who I am sure at one point (or 5 or 10 points throughout our friendship), they have wanted to physically harm me in some way – luckily, we are not the “fighting kind” and we all lived through all of the stupid adventures to be able to look back on what we had and what was so special and what molded us into the wonderful women we are today.

I am friends with people I met at work and formed an unbreakable bond while drinking cocktails at happy hour and smoking too many cigarettes, I am friends with people who we played poker to all hours of the night and then had to get up and work real jobs, I am friends with people I met by introduction of my boyfriend who later became my husband, I am friends with co-workers ex and current, I am friends with people who hold the same values I do and some who don’t, I am friends with people who have a passion for crafts like I do and desire to make the world cute.

Looking at all my friends and the different kinds of friendships I have grown to have over the years, I can’t express how grateful I am for every person in my life and for everything they have given me and helped me in some way or another to grow into the person I am today.

I received a package today that brought me to tears – not from sadness but from the shear joy it brought to me - the memories flooded back like it was yesterday. Now, I have always known how special I am in to the person who sent this to me and she knows the same from me. But this really made me think, out of all the people who are in my life, do all of them know how special they are to me and what they have done to impact my life or what trait of them I found so admirable? I don’t think they do. So in the coming weeks, I am going to let the people in my life know what they mean to me and why. So yes, you can expect a sappy card filled with my terrible handwriting letting you why you are so special.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from the book that brought me to tears: “A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.”