Friends for Life

How many people can say that they have had a friendship with someone for 30 years…I can…and one where we spent at least 23 of those years seeing each other everyday because we worked together.

One time, I got into trouble with a partner because I had said to him that if my friend died. I would not have the motivation to carry on with the business I was running. Our lives were so inter-twined that I couldn’t imagine life without my friend.

We have grown a lot since then and made our own paths. This is the thing about friendships, sometimes friends need to make their own discoveries and a true friend needs to let that happen. …”if you love someone, let them fly…”
We have both done that for each other at different times in our lives.

We are totally opposite to each other like chalk and cheese, sometimes we tolerate each other and other times we wind each other up. But the good thing is that no matter how mad we are at each other … there is a knowing that neither of us is going anywhere, we are still going to be in each others’ lives….much to the confusion of people around us. I can think of countless stories where my friend was there for me, he was there at every funeral, every wedding, when my dog died and for no reason. He will be here when my children get married and have babies, he will be there if anything happened to me… That’s a given.

My best memory of my friend was when my business partnership broke up after my first year in business I wasn’t upset about the breakup of the business as much as I was upset that my ex-partner took away a poster that he had given me to place in my office. When I told my friend this, he brought me another poster the very next day, to replace it. That to me was precious.

Will we irritate each other with what we do? …yes. Will we continue to wind each other up? …. Yes. Will I approve of everything he does?...No, will he approve of everything I do ?....No.
Life isn’t black and white, especially with long term friendships; there are many shades of grey in between. Friendship comes as a mixed bag – the good bits and the ugly bits and our job as true friends is to keep what works and throw the rest out without any resentment. I also believe that close friends are our extended family, like family, they will push our buttons and help us grow. I have learnt love, responsibility, tolerance for rules and tenacity from my friend. He probably, more than anyone else in my life, has made me grow so much and I am sure he will say that about me. Its almost as if we both took a pact in a past lifetime to come back and journey this lifetime together by nudging each other along.

My friend turns 53 today and I reflect on how we met. Little did we know that day that we will still be in each other’s life 30 years later. Our friendship has touched my life at a core level and I am glad he chose to journey with me all these years. I miss ‘us’ …they way we were…maybe we may travel one full circle and come back to that space in the future. For now, I am happy and thankful that our friendship has been able to withstand the test of time. Here is to another 30 years of friendship, let’s make a pact today that if we are alive in our eighties, we will drink a toast to the special bond we have that no one can break, not even us. Happy Birthday , My friend!