Friendship Is An Art

     

     Friendship is an art. Through life, one hopes to learn, practice, and honor it. It is like any other trade: You understand the skills, put them into practice, ruin hopefully not too many friendships, and then, one day, you look around and realize how friends are stars that illuminate your sky. That is something worth living for to see.

OLD AND NEW FRIENDS

     When I decided to move abroad for love, I knew that some friendships back home would continue as strong as they could be, other would weaken, and some forgotten. Also, I was aware new ones needed to be built, worked on, sculptured. To have a real friend is a serious private matter. This new person will meet you in a vulnerable state because you are trying to adapt to your new world. You are needy, too many areas to work on. Of course it can be scary! It is too intimate. But you know what? Like my new friends have told me, we are all in the same boat. Call it life or love, we are all on a journey and in this moment we are riding in the same wagon. And when we let these others see us just as we are, without pretending to be strong or to have it all figured it out, it is only then that something is achieved. 

GRATITUDE

     I am grateful, so very grateful, to have found new friends. It is not only about hanging out, it is about love and comprehension. The good and bad, beauty and...beauty with an inner beast! It is about encouraging the other to shine, even when he/she is scared of doing it. If we would tell our partners everything that we feel, fear, love, and hate, we run the risk of being misunderstood, or to overwhelm without meaning to. With friends, it is something different, unique. A sisterhood. 

     Thank you, my old friends, for showing me how to care for others. I hope I can be as good as you still are. And to my new friends, thanks for the gift of having the opportunity of writing stories, in our lives, together. 

Tot straks!

*The bracelet I am wearing in the photo was given to me by an old friend. Luckily for me, she is still close and I keep learning from her all the time. 

**Yes, we could talk about the meaning of tattoos another time.