Friends

Friends come and go and then come back into our lives. Some friends you grow up with, some you grow with. There are friends you can call at midnight and ones you can knock on their door at midnight. There are friends briefly flash through your life bringing joy and laughter for just a moment before they (or you) move onto a path that leads away from you. Some friends are family by blood , others are family by choice. I was going to share some stories about one such friend who is family by choice but she beat me to it over on her blog blessingsrealized. My problem then became what to say...so here goes...
I have friends that I have known for decades and others I met more recently but be they old or new the ones I cherish are the ones that I have "known" forever. The ones from grade school days whom I recently found again on Facebook where I never would have been if it hadn't been for a blogging world friend that I will one day meet in person. I love catching up with them even if it is through silly little statements and games. The friends from high school who knew me when I was....um...well let's just say they knew me when and still seem to like me now ☺ then there are the friends who others introduced me to so we could be friends because they thought we would be good for each other and help each other. Pinkie over at blessing realized is one of those. I had known her parents for a while and had probably met her before but she is 7 years younger than I and so when I might have met her I was in my early 20's so she was just a kid ☺she told some good stories about our friendship on her blog but one she missed was one that involved two other friends that I have talked about on here before baseballguy and vetboy. We were over at baseballguys place for his traditional gingerbread house decorating party a fun evening to say the least. However, someone had brought some root beer to the party when Pinkie poured herself some and took a sip. After her sip, she said it tasted gross and handed me her cup for me to confirm that it tasted bad. What do I do? I take a sip! To me that is the kind of friendship we have, one where we support one another even if it means we taste gross things.
To quote a poem by Edwin Markham
He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had wit to win:
we drew a circle and took him in!

That is how some of my best and longest friendships from high school ( truly from all the time periods of my life but high school was particularly rough) were I drew a circle and then someone drew a new one and took me in. Open hearts and minds is how friendships form and open hearts and minds is how they last. To all my friends, from whatever era, from whatever place and however we met... I love you all. I could write forever and not come close to all the stories that need telling on this one so I am stopping here. maybe I will revisit this topic another time... in the mean time check out the other posts on this "slice of life"