Friendship part 2

Again, I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately, but after re-reading my last post I realize that it only presented the kind of negative track that my mind was taking at that moment. So consider this the ying to that post's yang...or is it the other way around? I can never remember which one is black or white. Anyway...

Friends are.........................................I'm searching for a word but they all feel tiny. "Wonderful" would be like a child in grown-up clothes playing pretend. Its cute and you get the point, but everyone knows its not the real thing. Friends are whatever the fully adult, amazing-but-not-full-of-itself version of "wonderful" is. I think these days I am understanding a little better why people go insane when they're marooned on a deserted island.

After all....what are we in total isolation? I do believe that before everything else God Himself is the only complete source of joy and friendship that can satisfy this wild hunger to be fully known that devours us all, but I also believe that each one of us is intended to be an expression of that kind of "I still love you when you're ugly and smell bad" kind of love to each other. I'm blessed enough to be able to rattle off a whole bucket-list of people who have been that for me.

Our triumphs mean nothing if they cannot be shared by people who understand the one thousand and one things that make them uniquely spectacular.

Our tragedies would destroy us if we didn't have people just far enough outside of our circumstances to tell us that its really not such a big deal after all, and then make us laugh again.

So to all of you who have been with me, stayed with me, learned and loved with me...thank you. I'll be spending the rest of my life raiding the lost arcs of language to find a word big enough to carry the full weight of just how grateful and humbled I am to be on this crazy journey we call life with you. But in the meantime...thank you.