Let's friend!

I have travelled and moved around the world some, and it always strikes me the value of the friends you can make on the road, or when you are both flung together far, far away from the homeland.

At first, these friendships might seem like the gadgets you buy for those trips: necessary, useful and used in the right place at the right time. And some of them truly are like that. And rather like the stuff, and friends, you don't take with you and leave behind: some sit there waiting for you to pick up where you left off. Others go and find new owners.

Others are more than that.

Last night I spent 5 hours during the middle of the night on a video call to one those friends. Oceans, languages, time zones and (seriously) climate apart mattered not and the instant reconnection of sitting in her living room, and her sitting in mine, while we drank our respective bottles of wine was comforting, fun, trusting and, well, just like it always was and always will be.

Friendship is balance, reflection and discussion. A good friend lets you walk as close to the edge of the cliff as his humanly possible and will then drag you back the moment you topple the wrong way. A good friend never hides the bad stuff. A good friend looks up in embarrassing moments, not down. A good friend feels as happy as you do when the successes of life are reached.

Talking, laughing, joking, crying, watching, hugging, writing: all those things we do with our friends are verbs. Friend should be a verb: it's the action of some of the most precious moments of our lives. Today, they friended at her wedding. Last night we friended the whole night. Where are you going? To friend with Bob.

So for all the friends in the world, not just mine, thanks for friending. You can tell the people that don't have anyone friending them: the news is solely theirs, there is little to share.

So let's extend our friending nature to those who aren't our friends. It may not be the golden friendship we have found with others, but when those others are far away, it might just bring us some of those moments we miss.