Fresh off a really hard time of a year ... I'd say one of the most stressful of my life so far ... I've had the distinct blessing of being able to take one of those vacations that's really one of my favourites: time for Jan and I alone, but time to reconnect with old friends, too. Pardon, then, the "me" orientation of this reflection, but it has helped to think along this lines in the process of learning to cope with it all.Besides the Mediterranean cruise we'll be taking, we're seeing my old Madrid flatmate I haven't seen in 19 years, one of my very best friends ever in Barcelona (in Sant Cugat to be precise), a friend with Bahamian connections in Rome, another friends who runs the Logos bookstore in Calgary in the Cinque Terre, my "boss" from Quito and his wife in the UK and hopefully another friend from Bank of London and South America days. I'd have to classify virtually every one of them as "old friends". Relationships that go back years and years and years.
On the flight over from JFK to BCN I spent a lot of time reflecting on what makes these friendships different and durable vs. the folks that come and go and go and come and fill up lots of my time in the present (and by present I don't mean right now ... I mean at any given time).
I've come up with a couple ideas. Let's try them out ...
First and foremost, these are friends who have never asked of me to conform to their ideas. (My next post may address some of that). We can have knock-down, drag-out verbal battles with some of them and it just doesn't matter. No insult given, none taken. Some are liberal, some conservative. Some deeply spiritual, some not. Some from similar cultures, some from very very different backgrounds.
Then, virtually every one of them is in a stable marriage relationship, with their first wife! And except for one, we were friends before they got married. So the element of loyalty (to use one word for it) is a player in this equation.
These people don't require anything of me, and I have no expectations of them. In other words, it's not giving and receiving that cements the relationship.
Respect ... for my ideas and me for theirs. Not agreement, mind you. Just the simple understanding that to be friends we can't be carbon copies. Don't forget either that they come from all over ... Spain, Argentina, the UK. And that's only the ones we'll see on this trip. I have other similar friendships that have stood the test of time that, were we all living together, would still be current (I think).
I don't know what strange chemistry got any of these friendships going, but I do know that the fact I am loved and respected unconditionally by anybody at all touches me greatly.
Here's hoping I'm worthy of every one of them.
