Friendship

“An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body but an evil friend will wound your mind” those are the powerful words of the Budha. That is just one of my favourite friendship quotes of all time. What does it mean really to be a friend? Well to me a friend is not only encompassed in one person. It is finding special things in different people in your circle that you can identify with which together make you, you. I mean you cannot identify with absolutely everything that your friends are or have. My mother has always told me that I should first make friends with my own siblings before I can go out there and make friends with strangers. My sister is five years my junior and I am proud to say that she is my best friend. She is the one person I can always expect to be brutally honest with me. And when I say brutal, I mean brutal. I can go on and on about her so let’s just leave it there.

And then there are friends that I met in school. One would have thought that after high school that would have been the end of it. No, we do not communicate as often as you, “BFF’s” do. We can go for months without calling each other but when we get together; it’s as if we just saw each other yesterday. I mean we can laugh until we fart even as old as we are. That to me is what friendship is about.

“Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.” Ann Landers (1918-2002).

I have been fortunate enough to have made “friends” that have shaped me into becoming the woman that I am today. We are from totally different walks of life but yet we complement each other in the weirdest way. I can’t even remember how I became friends with some of them. I have been asked so many times how I relate with some of them seeing that they see the world totally differently from me. My answer has always remained the same. And that is, we are friends and that makes sense to us. Nobody else needs to understand but us. They are a bunch of strong, independent ladies who constantly want to better their lives and work for what they want. Bottom-line is we are not there to judge one another or compete with one another. We understand and accept that we are different and we love each other none the less.

“Some come and leave, fulfilling a single purpose; others, for a time or a season to teach us by sharing their experiences; and last, a select few who participate forever with relationships that endure through eternity.” Jaren L. Davis -

I have learnt that good friendships don’t need much. All you’ve got to be is just be yourself and give love. When you give love, you will receive love.

Yours with love and in love

Tsholz