during the week, i received a chain e-mail from one of my office friends. something about good luck. at the end it gave degrees of good fortune that will come to me if i passed on the e-mail according to the number of people. it further said that i should send it to ALL my friends so i can share with them this good fortune. and then went on further to warn me of consequences if i didn't do as requested.
now, good fortune i always wanted and still do, to share with all my friends, my family too, and those i know are deserving. but i wrote back to this friend and told her that i can't meet the "minimum" requirement of the e-mail.
"don't you have 5 good friends?" she asked.
now, friends i have quite a few, and only few. but good friends, i can count them using the fingers of my both hands, and i'm sure i am over estimating.
friends and degrees of friendship. that is the question.
i have two, three friends who are really, really dear to me. okay, four. these are friends whose happiness i share, whose misfortunes and sadness i bear, whose victory i partake, along with the loss. these are friends who respect me and whom i respect; who values my thoughts and opinion and whose thoughts and opinions i value, no questions asked. these are friends for whom i will die or share my life if it will make them live longer - share my kidney (okay, that's a bad example, because my right kidney is questionable and i think these friends would want me around a tad longer), give my other lung, part of my liver; if i have an accident, i would bequeath my heart to them if they are in need of it (to hell with my organ donation card, that is if one of these friends needs my heart).
mind you, these friends don't include the friend who lives in my apartment and shares the bed with me. i would do that for him too, but i'm sure i'll ask first his 6 children before i volunteer any part of myself; the logic being i would have to be healthy to take care of him or visit him. these friends are friends no matter what. they can make bad decisions and i would still be there for them; act like some lovesick teenager when there's a new man in her life, i'd tolerate it for as long as it takes (of course hoping the affair settles down or fizzles sooner to relieve me of the aggravation; selfish, ain't it?); or ask for advice even though i know they will do the opposite which was what they wanted to do in the first place anyway, and i would still be there to support them. or who chooses to disappear for say 25 years then come back in again into that friendship fold and the 25 years didn't seem to have taken place - we just pick up where we left off.
then of course i have friends for whom i will perform CPR (and actually remember what i learned in the training) (and that's aside from the said friends above); for whom i will write obituaries; for whom i will bake 600 muffins if i knew how. for whom i will pose naked if they ask although i'm sure none of them would want that aggravation.
it doesn't matter how long or how short the time i have known this person. a friend is a friend is a friend. and sometimes, you can even be a friend to someone you haven't even met, but your guts tell you that that person, as yet without a face, will be your good friend for a long time.
all my friends are beautiful people - outside and inside. and smart. i'm always proud to say that to my "other" friends, those that have not yet earned the status of going in that inner circle i have formed, that inner circle that nobody sees, even those who are inside it.
lulu and i started on shaky ground. she thought i was against her, when i was just being me, quiet (yes, i am the quiet type, hard to believe, i know) and observant. but when we started being nice to each other, we actually liked it and we ended up being best friends to the discomfort of the other friends we have. lulu and i are the same in our smarts and we think alike most of the time. how good a friendship would anyone expect from us?
there is aida, a friend from my high school days. she hung around different sets of friends and we were more like classmate acquiantance before we became real friends. then we did some silly things like throwing pieces of anything at anyone we liked. now aida is the quiet type (the really quiet as in no sound at all - me, my quiet you can still hear). she and i became good friends before high school was over - i guess we were growing old by then. she inspired me to learn how to play the guitar and i think i inspired her to do some good thing. then we both went our separate ways - she went to college, i did, too; she got married, i didn't; she had a daughter, i adopted a son. and years later we reconnected. like we just saw each other the day before. and our friendship was like that - once in a while over the course of many years i'd call her or visit her or write to her. i didn't mind if she didn't write me back because she knew i knew what her life is like. but that's our friendship.
virginia and i share the same passion for writing. or non-writing (i.e., when the muse has abandoned us). but she has other friends that she had met way before we met, but still we are friends, really good friends. she cares that i am happy in my attachments, that she gives good feedback on my writing; we learn things from each other. we are "intellectual" friends.
my sister lengleng and i have been friends for all our lives. when we were young children, i was her protector and she was the lookout, the screener when boys started to notice me in my teenage years. we didn't do things that were bad, we just looked out for each other in our own way. i could not imagine my life without my sister. there's just some things you can't tell your other best friends that you can tell your best friend sister.
then i have those other really special friends - chrissy, ada, julie, all held on the same pedestal, all in that unseen "circle" that i made.
friendship is when you learn lessons from the person, or they inspire you and hopefully they learn something from you, or they get some kind of inspiration from you, too. or even nothing. all these happen without you noticing it unless some circumstance makes you write a blog about friendship and you have nothing to say but think of the real friends you have and you take it from there.
cvsummerfield - November 27, 2007
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