friend

Friend is a word that many people abuse on a daily basis. It's very much like the way we use "hate" or "love". We say it casually and expect the people that hear us to understand the meaning of the word isn't as powerful as it's supposed to be. We use these words all the time and it's only with the word, "friend" that we can really stir a pot that we shouldn't disturb. It's not that we don't truly enjoy the people we call friend, but are they really worthy of the title? Perhaps a buddy or a chum would be more fitting. A friendship is much deeper than just someone to drink with or someone that you can laugh with. Does just getting along with someone make them a great friend and does enjoying someone once make them a friend at all? I have my concerns. I always thought that a great friend would give you their kidney when you needed one. Wouldn't a friend value you over all else? Isn't friendship the hardest thing to find in the galaxy and therefore, the most valuable commodity of all time? Isn't it true that you can't have love without a friendship?

Friends are those people that you have no doubt about. Regardless of how many things there are about that person you don't like or can't stand, you would still die for them or drop everything for them to insure their well-being. It's not everyone that is going to bail you out of jail at 3 in the morning. There may be some people that would, but not if you are in jail for a crime committed against them. Now that's a friend.

I have known many people that I would call my friend. I have also known many people that I have told they were friends but in hindsight have only turned out to be a great person that I knew once and really enjoyed. Sadly, how we define a friend has fallen into myth and it's time we remember what it is that makes someone worthy of the title.

First, you don't get to pick your friends. As much as you think you want to find people that are best suited to your life and your values, your friends find you and by their efforts and behavior, become the true friend that you often overlook. The harder you look for friends, the longer it will take you to realize that your true friend is already there and you are just neglecting them. I think the reason they are friends is because no matter how much you despise their personal traits, you are willing overlook them all because they possess the purest quality of friendship that is not readily found - Loyalty. The person you call friend can contradict every rational ideal you have about humanity and yet their willingness to be there when it counts is far more important to you, and it will act as a huge eraser of all arguments you have against them. You can be a clean freak and they a slob. You can be quiet and they could be loud. You can be a country freak and they can be R&B. It doesn't matter. They were there, and they are always there. So climb over their piles of clothes and enjoy the sweet sounds of Luther Vandross.

There is no great test of friendship, and sadly we rarely question our relationships with certain people. I have millions of conversations with people about their other friends and most of the time they do nothing but complain about them. A few days later you see the two of them together and you wouldn't know that there was a problem in the world between them. The complaints they had are trivial and worthless only their friendship remains. Friendship trumps all flaws.

In our youth, everyone was a friend, because we didn't know otherwise. Another child had only to be in your class or live on your block and they were a friend by default. There was no selection process and we didn't know how to weed out unwanted relationships. As we get older and society starts to break us into different classes of people with different lifestyles, we start to drift apart from those childhood bonds and it's not until we see former childhood friends in our adulthood that we see the emptiness, and the strength, of what it means to have a real friend. A friend from fifth grade might not even acknowledge you in a public and it doesn't mean anything to you. It's a shocking feeling and you just brush it aside.

As we get older, we have fewer and fewer friends. There just isn't enough time to make or keep a lot of friends. We start to see fewer great friends and an increase in the number of tolerable acquaintances. People we can be social with once in a while, but no one we would bare our souls too if we were having a rough day. No one we are going to reveal a secret too or share a fantasy or a painful memory. These people are okay for a moment and that's about it. The older we get, the closer we get to that ONE person that is the best friend. Time, it would seem, is the true measure of someone's loyalty to us. The longer they show us loyalty, the deeper our loyalty to them and the deeper our appreciation for their friendship.

I can remember every great friend I have ever had. I can also remember the names of people that I have really wished would have been better friends. Sadly, my life has never been very stable and I have noticed that the spring cleaning of friendships happens all to often in my world. I try and keep all the contact information for people that I have enjoyed, but after the fifth or sixth address book change and there has been no contact from that person, their name doesn't make the cut for the new book and it's lost forever. I hold out hope beyond hope that someday I will see them again, but I have come to realize that some people you only get to enjoy once and then they are supposed to be just a great memory. I am fortunate to say that my life is filled with these people.

The one person that I would call my best friend is Adam. I have known him for over 15 years and he has seen me through it all; Marriage, illness, careers, countless relationships, drugs, booze, you name it... He has been there. I don't get to talk to him every day and we have gone months ( at one point, 18 months ) without contact. Regardless of the amount of time, I know that he is always there and I always know where he is and how to find him. Where my life has sent me orbiting around a different world, his has always been a constant. Changing in ways that mine has not, but our friendship is the link that keeps both us in each other's lives. He is still there. There are things about me that he can't stand and there are things about him that I can't stand, but I wouldn't trade him in for anything. No matter how many things there are in the "con" column, the one great "pro" outweighs them all. He has always been there. And for that, I am truly grateful. I am not the easiest person to know and I am not the best at keeping in touch. But he has stuck it out and knows the ebb and flow of my behavior. He knows I will call eventually.

I try to keep in touch with everyone I enjoy. It was a lot easier when the internet came along, but even that let me down when the blog began to take off and the number of emails I had to read and try to respond to each day began to wear me down. I wanted to write, but was so burnt out on writing that I just kept telling myself that I would respond later. "Later" just always seems to never come. It's sad. Many of the people that I really enjoyed have since stopped writing to me because it was so one-sided and many of them have moved me onto the spring cleaning shelf. I guess I could string them along with form letters and mass emailings, but that just wouldn't be the kind of relationship that I wanted with all of them. This is the point where I have to think of them as great people that I used to know and take pleasure in having known them in the first place. Some of them will return out of curiosity, but some are gone forever. Their names and memories live with me, but their address do not.

I am a good friend as I am sure many of you are as well. Sad isn't it, that more people will never get to know just how great of a friend we truly are. You can not pick your friends and you can not advertise for them. The less you look, the more likely it is that you will find them.