Friendship.

I have been thinking a lot about friendship lately and about different kinds of friendships and about how friendships form. Long-lasting, possibly life-long friendships. Brief but intense friendships. Work friendships. Similar-activities friendships. Your-kids-are-friends-and-you-become-friends friendships. Childhood friendships. Adulthood friendships. No-longer-friends-but-would-like-to-reconnect-again friendships. Neighborhood friendships. Friend-of-a-friend-so-you-see-each-other-often friendships. So many different kinds of friendships and they all serve a purpose in our lives.

What I have been pondering is a similarity between all the different types of friendships – they are all built on hundreds or thousands of little moments or little acts. Those moments all pile up and at the top of it all is this beautiful thing called friendship. The multitude of small things such as, hellos or goodbyes, walking by in the hallway and smiling, sharing lunch, chatting about the weather, dropping off cookies, watching your kids play sports together, running together, seeing each other after yoga every week, laughing at jokes together, remembering a birthday, sending a card for no reason, learning a new skill, taking an adventure, sharing a good bottle of wine… all those small moments add up.

So today I encourage you to celebrate the different friendships in your life. If I were my own best friend I would tell myself to be grateful for the many, varied people I count as friends in my life now, in the past, and yet to come. Through thousands of little acts they have made my life richer and fuller in ways I could not have imagined. Thank you my friends.

In case you cannot fully read the picture this is what it says:

Friendship – a thousand little acts of kindness and compassion and time and love and laughter and smiles and being there and being present and sharing food or a drink or a hug and sitting quietly or being loud or taking on the world together over time of days or hours or years of lifetimes when everyone was there or no one else was there you were there to hold a hand or be a shoulder or clean up a mess or make a mess or fix a mess or have a fight or get over a fight or forgive or forget and be present and stand up if needed because friends are formed of a thousand different small acts all based on love