5 January 2008: Friends for life?

Recently I've had a lot of involuntary reminders of the value of really good, really old friends. I have this new awareness of the difference between friends and friends for life - those friendships that grow close and sometimes grow distant but always grow close again after a while, people I am not prepared to let fall away completely. Today I called one of them for the first time in ages, a friend I haven't seen in almost two years; and yet it felt just like always. I consider myself quite a loner really but there are a precious few friends who mean the world to me and whom I hope to always be in touch with. Some of them are right under my nose and I am grateful to them for their recent actions and for helping me see how important they are, and make the most of the time with them.