friendships, the important things in life

It has been well over a week since my last posting and a bit way too long for my liking.

(DISCLAIMER!)
"Forgive me for any grammatical errors, misuse of wording, etc..." I write in bursts of energy and I get very enthusiastic about what I write when I feel it's so important to be said or written!"

Today, I want to post on something that lately I have been holding dearly to my heart, our friendships that we have with special people in our lives. Some of us have very special people in our lives in which we confide just about anything and everything with. These relationships are not by accident; they happen for reason that I really feel are beyond our control. Not like I'm writing they are forced upon ourselves without our permission, "NO!" But they are presented to us as a gift to allow ourselves to be completely authentically ourselves. In these times now, most times due to things like work especially, we are not really truly allowed to be authentically ourselves. Most of us put up false fronts to make nice and keep the peace and allow the status quo to continue on its path as usual.
But with our true friendships that we allow in our lives, we go beyond all that bull crap that we deal with on a daily basis.
I will admit yesterday was not a great day for me, some stuff that came to light about others at work that really put me in a kind of bad space; but I allowed that to be. I cannot blame anyone for how I feel but myself, in any situation. You can never blame anyone for how you feel; you can only accept how you feel for any given situation by how you react to it. Saying to someone else "That person made me so mad" for example is completely not true. If you read into what you might have said in for instance that example, you are truly saying that you gave up your "own power" to this person and let their circumstances dictate to you how you should feel. And that's not why we should let things, no matter how bombshell or not they can be. If the truth that we inevitably find out comes to disturb us in some form or another; I don't say "don't let it bother you, let it roll off your back" No, that wouldn't be fair to say to me nor anyone for that matter. You can get upset and feel like "Damn that person!!" But from there, take that feeling of helplessness because that's exactly what you are feeling helplessness and then find something else in your life that gives you joy. Joy is the most important luxury in life that some of us do not allow ourselves to have, me including. Joy comes in many different forms. It could be a visualization of a place you want to be at, at that very moment, a feeling of safety, a material object that provides you with visual pleasure, a smell of something that gives you a feeling of comfort (for me it's the smell of orange blossoms), whatever it is, think of that. Let that feeling of joy be your catalyst to move past the feeling of helplessness.

Yesterday as I wrote I stumbled upon something that really bothered me. I found out something about someone making more money than I did; not like they didn't deserve to make this rather astronomical amount of money. But just the mere thought that they, too, did what I current did and now are levels beyond where I am now, just put my feelings in a tizzy.
What I did do to get out of this feeling of hopelessness was to do something about it. I emailed friends, I called friends and then eventually called the most important friend I have in my life, my best friend. A friend that I had lost touch with a long time ago, almost 8 year ago to be exact. But for reason other than fate, we reconnected. I'm grateful for that. But after discussing with my best friend my feelings of "being undervalued" (in some words more or less), I then got taken away from the thoughts of feeling like I was "less than" and whisked off away into our days of youthful foolishness, observations of our own lives as they had unfolded during the time we were apart and how those observations have given us much more wisdom into our current situations. I can say that my best friend is dealing with a lot on their plate; more than most of us can and would want to deal with; but I have such high regard for my best friend's tenacity, true inner verve for life, deep love and admiration for their friends in their life. I think things like that really keep us folks going when things get tough in life. You hit a bump in the road and then you are totally whacked out of your equilibrium and who helps you get your bearings back? "Your best friend in the whole wide world!" The one person that understands you, as close and as good enough as your partner/spouse/significant other/what have you in your life.
After talking to my best friend yesterday for almost over a half hour while I was doing some personal business; all my cares and worries about what was ailing me just withered away. "Ahhh.. the power of true friendship"
True friends don't care about how you look like, what you are wearing, what you are doing for a living, etc... they just care and love you because they JUST DO!
I never thought I would have this connection again. I am not downplaying the fact that I have made some really good deep new friendships in my life since the absence of my best friend that came back into my life again recently.
"No, my new friendships that I cherish very dearly as well, really matter to me as well"
I always try to treat all of my really good friends with the same level of respect, care in hearing their feelings, keeping in their confidences as if I was their "father confessor" which I truly feel like I am being and I take pride in the fact that I will truly keep their confidences. This is key to me in maintaining good friends, honest caring loving friends.

We have so many people in our lives. Some people we like to call "friends" just because we see them every day but "Are they?"

Most people, me included, have "friends" that we converse on a daily basis due to what we do in our lives at the present moment which is usually work. We discuss work things, stuff about people at work, why certain things at work bother us, why did this person get such and such?, what we think we know that could make things so much better at our jobs if only they listened to you, etc... the list goes on.

We do and can make some pretty substantial friends at our workplaces. Some of us can make friends at work that have really deepened our lives immensely.

I, for on and I am being honest here, do not like to look for my best friends or true friends at my workplace. For me, my work place is a place that is always subject to change like the weather report. I get bored very easy and need to change the scenery and when that times comes, I take action. As of now, I haven't done much to take action and that bothers me most immensely. "Do any of you feel the same?"
Well, I have one or maybe two people at work that I can say with honest, I can call "friends". And one most definitely, I considered "a true friend", a person that I can confide my most inner feelings about stuff that's going on there but what's even better, stuff that's not work related! I swear if all you can talk about amongst with each other, those that have more work friends than friends outside of work, is work then "these people" you call "friends" that you have only through work, "They ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS!" That is just my general life held observation! I don't care if some of you will disagree with what I wrote but to me and it has been for me, "It's TRUE!"
If I can't talk anymore than just "shop talk" with any of the "friends" I have made on the job and nothing more; well, then, "you truly are not my friend in the truest sense of the word"
That is one big pet peeve for me, "shop talk" Talking about it off hours away from the place that  we have all have in common. When I'm away from work, I want to discuss things that are different, fun, joyous, completely off the radar than about what my boss is thinks about me!

Work is just an extension of what we are meant to do for that very moment, it's not a life's sentence. It's just part of where we are at for the time being. I think we all need to move in different directions when we have learned important lessons in life after being working somewhere.

It truly amazes me how long some folks work for companies; 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, 30 years! "Is this a bad thing in my book?" Well, "no" I wouldn't say it was truly. But for me, personally speaking, and I am definitely not amongst the norm of society, I feel like if you don't change things like work in your life after 10 or even 15 years, then you are not growing as an individual. We were put on this planet to learn things, different things, when we learn them, we move on and then we learn even more newer things for our own self growth and the enrichment for others in our lives. I think if we continually do the same thing for many years, we just do not grow as people. That is how I personally feel. I know that some that may be reading this might think I'm being very close minded about saying that and it may sound that way. But I think I'm being honest and more open minded about it than you or anyone is honestly willing to admit.
I was at a truly boring work meeting yesterday and they were honoring people for working many years with the company. While I was there sitting, listening, I was quite amazed by it all.  I did think "Good for them, they found their niche!"  But I was also thinking "My, don't you have anymore desire to move on forward in your life and grow in even more substantial ways and directions than just this current station in life  that you are living?" That's how I think.
Like I said, I don't think like the rest of everybody. If I do think like some others might do, "Great to know I'm not alone with these thoughts, feelings and my attitude! Welcome to my world!"

Also while I sat at this meeting yesterday, I sat there and thought to myself "I really don't feel a part of this big group of people at all" I had this feeling of not feeling this inner connection that most of the people in this room felt with one another at all.  And believe me, there were/are many that were in that room that had this really close affinity to one another.  Part of me felt a tad jealous about their admiration for one another but then a BIG part of me felt this HUGE relief to know "I'm here as an observer, this isn't going to be the place to lay my hat at for a very long time as most of these people have" I will admit I have been in my current job for 5 years now. This is absolutely thee longest held job for me at this stage in my life. I have been in the same work field a total of soon to be 15 years this upcoming December. 15 years. That's a long time. "Do I want to do be doing this for another 15 years?" My answer would be most definitely "No" Because I honestly feel this true inner specialness about myself, and I hope that there are others out there that feel this same way like I do, I really want to change the course of my life and do something different, learn some new lessons or at least, put myself into a different realm to learn what I have already and put the lessons learned into practice this time. As a person, now 40, I'm still considered young by some and old by others; but I have gained a lot of knowledge that I think whatever direction I go into, I will definitely be more "authentically" myself now than I would've been at age 20. At age 20, I was so young, wanting to be loved and have friends and do anything there could be to keep and maintain them. Now after having learned some of the "ins and outs" of what "true friendship" is all about; I can definitely take it or leave it with some of the useless drama of life that some folks unfortunately hold onto like it's their life's blood sadly.

I have kind of gotten off base here so bear with me as I gather my bearings here on the topic at hand, "friendships" True friends, friends that you can count on no matter what even in your darkest hours will be there. And so you will be there for them as well. You and your true friends have this inner knowing of love and respect for one another. You treat each other, hopefully, with the same principle, "You treat others the way you want to be treated". That's how I feel and think. I treat friends, I hope, the way way I want to be treated and I hope it's a two way street because in this life, "It NEEDS to be a two way street" because if it's not "GET OFF THAT DAMNED ROAD!" "You have better roads (friends) to be traveling on!"

I had a really good conversation last weekend with my sister and she talked to me about a long time friend of hers, one that she has had since elementary school. This friend of hers has been a friend off and on for many years. Her friend was and is a pretty private person, her choice and that's okay. My sister is a very caring, gregarious individual, she tries to take the time to listen to you; if she doesn't so happen to be caught up all in her own drama (Forgive me sis, I have to call it like it is! But I love you!) But my sis was having a dilemma with this long time friend of hers. She was telling me how every time she tried to ask her long time friend for specific details about what her long time friend was ailing her, her long time friend would tell her "Well, I don't think you need to know that info" (said those words more or less, not exactly) and how this really put my sis at a loss as to "How do I even be there for a friend that doesn't allow me to be a part of it by hiding details about themselves to me?" Then as our conversation progressed, she told me about her long time friend mentioning that she was on Facebook and her long time friend telling her all about the friends they had together from elementary and high school she had reconnected with again. My sis was quite amazed. My sis' long time friend said that these mutual friends had posted pictures of the past on their profile pages and what fun it was to see pictures of the old days. My sis then asked her long time friend of hers, "So were there any pictures of us with any of these old friends?" And then this long time friend of my sis' said the one thing that I would say would be something totally callous to say to a "true friend" My sis' long time friend said "Well, if you were around for a good ten years long time ago in my life, you might be in some of the pictures I had seen on these friends on Facebook's profiles" That sentence was very telling to my sis and myself. My sis was rather hurt by that sentence and if any of you can imagine if you have ever heard an uttering of something in this similiar vein, the pure daggers this utter meant; you can maybe see where I'm going with this story,  I hope.

Well, after my sis told me about this last conversation with her long time friend and what she said, I asked my sis, "Well, that was quite uncalled for" "Did your long time friend really think it was necessary to make you feel bad about a lapse in time they had as cause for ammunition to get back at you for your lives moving in different directions as they did?" Because to me, and hopefully you too can see, that exactly what it was. My sis' long time friend was getting back to her because their friendship stopped unexpectedly, not to my sis' choice nor I'm sure to even her long time friend's either, and they moved in different directions as some of our friends do. We all move in different directions and we all move a different speeds in life. Some of us grow, some of us don't, some of us don't ever talk again to one another because of a "defining incident" But when we do reconnect, we all have this inner hope that whatever happened to have stopped our dialogue in the past, due to whatever reasons those were, that we won't have a "friend' rub in our faces the reason why, in this particular case with my sis; in a very unknown reason (my sis still doesn't know what she did to this long time friend to cause her to lash out as she did?), we lost touch with one another. Forgive me if my thoughts here get jumbled and if you are trying to decipher through my writing here.
Well, in the end, I told my sis, "you didn't do anything wrong. You life moved in a different direction and it wasn't intentional that you both stopped talking. This long time friend is just acting out against you because they felt hurt by your loss in communication with you both. This, I can say I do understand deeply, but when it all comes down to it, if we can let go of the past with all of its hurts and junk, we all can move forward in our "friendships" and become better people from it.
My sis then did go onto say "Well, you know who did leave me a voicemail message not too long ago after that conversation and wanted me to call her back?" "Should I?" I told her "Well, you can but you don't have to. This friend did hurt your feelings, whether intentional or not, it's up to you to allow them in your life. And when you think of all the things your friend doesn't allow you to be a part of, their true thoughts, feelings, real life events, etc... Do you want them to be a friend of yours?" I told my sis "Just because you have been friends since elementary school doesn't mean you have to be friends for life. They way this friend rubbed your face about the lack of dialogue you hadn't had for over a decade shouldn't be the something you have to worry about because if it happened this time; it will happen again. This friend has some true inner animosity towards you. "Do you want that?" My sis told me "No" And so it goes, "We can CHOOSE our "true friends" and know who they are by how they treat us!"
My sis had also, on the same subject but a different friend (my own best friend to be more exact) told me she talked to my best friend and they had a good conversation and my best friend or my sis, doesn't matter who said it, but it was THEE MOST IMPORTANT THING one can want to hear a "true friend" say "OMG, I feel like we just picked up where we left off long time ago; it's like we are still on the same connection again and I feel like I'm home again"

Now that to me truly defines what a "true friend" is in your life. No judgements, pure honesty and life continues again where it left off if you had lost touch and reconnected again (for those of us that had this happen to them), and even if you had constant contact with your most "truest friends" and there is that constant feeling of "we're on the same wavelength" TREASURE IT! It's a GIFT!

I'm glad I received a gift again with my oldest best friend in the whole wide world. It gives me great consolation that there are people in our lives that truly do make a difference to us personally.

Okay, I think it's time for me to wrap things up for now; I hope to write more stuff again soon and much sooner at that. I think I touched a lot of subjects in this posting that I wasn't able to completely tie up and I want to.

My mind is ever flowing with so many truly honestly good things to say; stuff I mean and feel with the deepest inner most of my being.

I hope that some of what I wrote today will resonate with you. Even if it doesn't, that's okay. Think of it as future "food for thought"

All my love and deep admiration to you all,
Armando