I have beautiful friends.
I know I’m writing an unprecedented two days in a row, but I felt compelled to write this. So I am.
My friends are amazing. I know everyone thinks that (just like everyone thinks they have the best mother in the world, and they are wrong, because I have the best mother in the world, and she is my mother alone, so therefore, everyone else can only have the second-best mother), but really, I have the most amazing friends.
They are scattered across the country and the world. My somewhat nomadic life means that I have to find “my people” in a new place every few years, which means that over the course of the past 10 years “my people” themselves have scattered and now I could probably travel across the country and never need a hotel (actually, I semi-tried that when I interviewed for residency, and it’s true).
My friends save the lives of children – through medicine or teaching or writing or fundraising. They embrace adventures – be it traveling across the world or moving to a new city all alone or figuring out that whole motherhood thing. They speak out for what they know to be good and true and right. They are funny to the point of teary eyes and damp underwear. They love with abandon – me and everyone they know. About a year ago, in one of my darkest times, they made it clear that I was loved and cared for and when they couldn’t be there in body I never doubted they were there in spirit (and in chocolate). In what could have been one of my loneliest times I never felt alone.
I am exceptionally blessed by my friends. I am grateful every day for the love and the grace they show me – that they answer my melodramatic texts, read my lengthy emails, listen to me rant about something that, in the end, is trivial at best. And I am grateful that despite time and distance, there are still so many of them.
I love you all.
(This post inspired by my overflowing Christmas card holder. And recent conversations/events. Which are really just everyday events because, as you now know, my friends are awesome.)
Quote for the day:
“Intimacy between friends involves a nondominant love, as well as vulnerability. With a true friend we can share the deepest places of our hearts, the dark as well as the light. I have friends whose secrets will go to the grave with me, as mine with them. We listen, we share, we laugh, we accept. We seldom give advice, and when we do it is for love, not power. ” — Madeleine L’Engle (of course), Penguins and Golden Calves