A lifelong friendship is built on time and a foundation of many years of shared experiences. An emotional bond develops through the trials and tribulations that are unique to the people involved. A relationship begins from a basic human desire to communicate with another person. The challenge is to accept a premise of imperfection, appreciating the rough edges within one’s personality, embracing the relationship for its sincerity, acquiring a sensitivity to laugh and cry when appropriate, and to give thanks to the human qualities that enable two people to enjoy the experience of open, real, trusting, and honest communication. These traits form the essential focus of a friendship. The strongest, most enduring relationships develop from a consistent practice of patience, forgiveness, compassion, generosity, and understanding. When an artist begins a masterpiece of sculpture from a rough piece of stone, it requires time to chip away the rough edges to attain finality. Lifetime friendships are time dependent and said to be clairvoyant. My closest friends have been with me for decades. While I do not see them on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly schedule; what makes these relationships so valuable is that when our paths do cross, we resume where we left off from the last encounter. The reflections of past experiences and the stories we tell form a volume of memories linking a continuous journey that imprints our individual identities and defines the pathway of our lives. An inability to recall and add to these events would be a tragedy. A failure to build upon this egalitarian behavior could result in the demise of the human condition.
Life tends to slow down as we internalize through a heightened sense of personal self-awareness for a more compassionate disposition; and a higher priority that appreciates and understands what has become the essential pleasures of being alive. This revelation now takes precedence as one continues to examine the affairs and actions of a day’s priorities. If one is fortunate enough to have reached old age, then the realization of a life well lived should become intensely illuminated while reflecting upon good fortune and an enhanced sensitivity to just being healthy enough to witness the awesome beauty and complex functions of the planet. Each day when our eyes fly open, and we take that first conscience breath, it becomes the first day of the rest of our lives; another day to improve our stature, another chance to make a significant contribution to the world, another granted effort to strive to get it right.