Through-out our lives we meet many people. So many different kinds of people too. Different personallities, races, some with hang-ups, some without, some with lots of baggage, some traveling light. Some with smiles, some with frowns, some high on drugs, others just high on life. Happy ones, sad ones, good ones and bad ones. You name it, they all cross our paths at one time or another.
Even though many of us are good judges of character, it can be tuff sometimes to pick out the people with whom we can bond, open up our hearts to and share our lives, secrets, and love with. While many have no difficulty making friends, its so hard to find "good" friends. I mean a friendship that will last through-out the years. It is truly a godsend when we can find that kind of a good friend and sometimes even more of a godsend to keep them.
I'm not just talking about the friend who will set and listen to what you have to say but, a good friend who listens to what you don't say. Or a friend who will come and post your bail so that you can get out of jail but, a good friend who is setting right there beside you, talking about the ass kicking, hell-raising night that the two of you just had togather. I am so glad that I have lived long enough to learn the true meaning of a quote that I heard years ago... "Nothing from some is better than gold from others."
Good friends may not be the best looking people in the world. They may not be of the same race as me or even from the same country for that matter. They may not have alot of money to take me out here and there and pay my way. What makes them such good friends though, is that what they do have, they happily share it.
I have learned to look at everyone that I meet as a potential good friend. A few have thankfully turned out to be. My only regret, as I was too young to realize the value of finding a true good friend, was to let them become seperated from me as I went on with my life. If only I would have left them a forwarding address or took the time to give them that new telephone number, I would have so many more good friends today. Its truly a loss.
I often think and wonder about them. Whatever happend to them and how their lives are now. I wonder what they would look like now, after not seeing them for years or what it would be like if there were a reunion. How would my life be now, if they were still a part of it.
I have seen money escape me as through I had a hole in my pocket. I have seen material things get old and depreciate until I was no longer able to use them and had to replace them. Yet I have never been able to replace the good friends that I have allowed to slip through my hands. Was it I all along who was just a friend? GCJ