I’m off this morning on my annual girls’ retreat in Salmon Arm. We have so much fun just on the drive and that is saying a lot for a 6 hour drive. Gillian is hilarious and Rose has her own dry wit that startles me so often. I’ve known Rose for 9 years now so you’d think I’d expect these witticisms by now. These are my FF gal pals, FF being the law firm we all worked for at one time or another. There are 5 of us fast friends but our Brenda is severely allergic to critters so is unable to make the trip because Marie has critters.
I’ve talked about friendship before but I don’t think I can say it enough. Friends are the treasure of life. We are born into a family and if we are lucky we have a great family but when you can find friends for life you are truly blessed. I used to think that friendships couldn’t evolve after high school because for many years it didn’t seem to happen to me. I’d make friends at work but when we moved on we only stayed in touch for a little while before the friendship dwindled into nothing. I realize now that it was partly my fault and these last 11 years I’ve made huge efforts to keep my friends.
Huge efforts? That sounds dramatic. I should say that I worked at it rather than just allowing a friend to evolve. After all, what did I do in high school? I called Silvia and Ranee, we had lunch all the time, we went to each other’s houses every weekend. We worked at it. I wrote to Ninette weekly (sometimes twice a week)! For years. Friendship isn’t osmosis. Friendship is work, but it is pleasant work. Like last weekend in Winnipeg. Like this weekend. Getting up at 4:00 and being on the road by 5:30 and laughing our heads off through Banff and Golden.
This year I’ve made a new friend in Jane, my NYC buddy. She is going through a tough time right now with her second hip replacement surgery and rather than send flowers I’m doing the true friend thing by visiting her, by helping her with her housework and cooking. This is how we treat our friends and guess what? It makes me feel great. And a special blessing on Cristy for making the tasks simpler by sharing them. You are a treasure.
After all, we can’t let Marie have all the sunshine and all the flowers. She has to share. That’s part of friendship.
Marie, we love you and we adore Paul for letting us steal your birthday weekend from him!
(Sorry everyone, this is a very personal blog this morning but I just feel so blessed in friendship. Let’s just pretend this was a special Gratitude Lesson).
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