Friendships That Work and Friendships That Don't

I'm managing to spend some time with friends though it is feeling a bit intense seeing that I've just come off a very fast train.

CB is one of my closest friends in the whole world... We went to high school together, we moved to Boston together to go to music school and CB is still a friend that I can trust my world with fully. She is in San Diego and I miss not having her nearer. She's known me most of my life and she's someone that to my great comfort "gets me." I have a small handfull of people who orbit that close to my soul... where most people feel like travellers passing through.

My quiet world is a bit different when she is around for she is someone who shows up and sits in the very seconds of reality that I'm observing at the moment.

Experiencing friendship and reality at a level that is profoundly out of step from the daily groove, is refreshing. It's like having sunlight hit through a prism and enjoying rainbows. Time actually seems to stop for me... consistently between certain relationships.

Do you know those kinds of friendships where doubt and misunderstanding is rare... where acceptance and the virtues rule?

I want to understand what the winning formula is. Is it sharing history? Growing up together from childhood? A cheerful disposition and positive outlook?

I just had a tiff with a friend here in Los Angeles that has left me frustrated and a bit bewildered. We don't have enough shared history in comparison to other friendships. We didn't grow up together and we have different backgrounds. And I can't say that our friendship is framed in cheer and positivity.... She had gone on to say some things that I was sad to hear and wondered if she regretted saying them. All in the glory of honest confrontation and the battle to be right. It has left a gap in our friendship and marks another cold season coming between us.

I'm growing tired of the trend. Telling details of the conflict is just sharing a story... a story that ends with no friendship and no connection. She and I didn't create any happy resolutions.

If I could bottle what CB and I enjoy in how we relate, I would take a dose of it now so I wouldn't be so sad and disappointed at the stupidity of a fallen moments of friendship here. It would be an elixir that went down well and warmed the soul, oiled the brain and made laughter and smiles return to natural states.

I'm perhaps indulging my sadness a little much. I had a great time this weekend with friends despite one blow up.

JNET