The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.– Elisabeth Foley
A FRIEND is defined as a person we know well and like a lot but who is not usually a member of our family but many of us have cousins as friends or sisters or brothers as friends. Everyone has friends. Sometimes we even categorize our friends, as in best friend, close friend, old friend, new friend, long-distance friend.
It is said that a friend is someone who understands our past, believes in our future and accepts us as we are.
Perhaps we set up standards and expectations of our friends that we become disappointed when they fall short of those. A friend talking ill of you with another friend is a wonder. I asked why? Did I perhaps fall short of her expectations? It would have been ideal if I had handled the situation politely, not in a confrontational way. So we ended up quarreling which terminated our friendship.
Have you ever experienced being snubbed by a friend? I did! I met this friend by chance in Villa Escudero, a resort in Quezon. I waved at him and wanted to give him the customary beso-beso but he just stared at me and looked behind me. My smile froze but what could I do? That incident haunted me for quite a while but I decided to get over it.
When I confided this to another friend, he exclaimed: “Who needs friends anyway?” But he is wrong. I need a friend at all times. I collect friends — my family, my neighbor, anyone I meet can become a friend.
I made many friends from the days of my provincial childhood up to my years in boarding school and in the university and in the companies I worked with, and now in the recreation center where I spend time to hone my creativity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “The glory of friendship is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.”
I once wrote an essay titled “Grateful for Life” included in an anthology, Finding the Sun, published by Sunshine Place. I wrote about feeling alone as a child as my father died before I even learned to walk. I was left with my widowed mother, a teacher who naturally had to earn a living, so I was cared for by my grandmother and an aunt who soon went abroad when she married a diplomat. Then my mother remarried so I was alone again until I was sent to a girl’s convent school. Here is where I started to find a weapon to cope with the aloneness, the warm and comforting company of classmates, nuns and even those who took care of me.
In times of deep solitude, my friends filled the void with overwhelming humanity and actually kept me grounded. Much later I found a friend whom I married and perhaps the friendship strengthened our relationship.
However, making friends should not be only within our circle. As a book, Gift of Friends, says: “Take time to make friends with individuals who might ordinarily be outside your social group. The best friends are not always the most important, visit the old, the sick, the elderly, remember what you do for someone helps both of you.”
Recently, I had lunch with two friends I made working at the Malacañang Press Office. We keep in touch but are rarely able to get together, so meeting up for five hours was reconnecting and it was like quenching a thirst. We talked about everything: family, new jobs, new friends, disappointments, achievements. We promised to meet up again and I’m sure five hours would not be enough.
I zoom weekly with my former dormitory mates in the university; three are based in the USA, one in Antique, another one in Sta. Rosa Laguna and another one in Ayala Alabang. We are never short of topics to talk about. During these sessions, we seek advice from each other regarding our present encounters with the outside world; we make fun of these encounters as something that should not be given importance or much notice. We all feel relieved after these sessions although some also question the advice. But we take all these with a grain of salt.
Another memorable reconnection was made about a month ago when a friend from college (roughly 50 years ago) suddenly showed up on FB. Joining FB may not always be pleasurable but certainly reconnecting with old friends or making new ones on FB is a plus to oldies like us.
However, we are told that we have to be friends with ourselves too. If I can be gentle and courteous to others, I should be courteous and gentle with myself. Then I can be a good friend to others.
Continue to make friends because new friends are like diamonds that make us sparkle while old friends are gold that add glitter to our life.
In my Spiral of Life, friends I made at the start of the spiral, I carry with me even as I meet new ones along the way.
