Friends and Family

My definition of family is a group of beings that have a connection. In that sense, since we all originate from one source, we are one family. In recent years I have been given many experiences that have taught me that family is much more than biology.

We are given people to assist us on our human journey in the form of relatives and friends. I believe these souls were chosen in advance of our physical creation and that we assisted in their selection. This belief is the result of many hours of unique education that has been put on my path either to be ignored or absorbed. I have chosen to pay attention to and accept many new concepts which have brought me to a more peaceful understanding of what is.

As I take a backwards look at my life I see that the people I have had the most trouble getting along with are the very people who have brought me the greatest lessons for personal evolvement. If life were a bowl of cherries and everyone we came across every instant of every day was super nice, it would create so much sugar we wouldn’t be able to walk through the sticky mess.

It has been said that people come into our life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. I have not had the opportunity to have lifetime friends, mostly due to moving from place to place in my younger years. The closest I have come is about 35 years. I have had many friends who were there briefly for a few months or years, who acted as a teacher, provided support or were a distraction so I had time to focus on a personal problem. One of the hardest things to do is to let go of a friend or family member when it has become clear that one or the other has moved on and the partnership is no longer positive.

My friend list took a huge jump when I accessed Facebook in 2009. Some refer to these friends as virtual and their other friends as real. I prefer not to separate them. Although I may never meet in person members of the first group they are very important to me. I have friends from all over the world and my contact with them has allowed me to travel to places I may never afford to visit and learn how others live. Over time they have proven that they care about me and I in turn care about them.

My friend list does change from time to time because I change and in the process attract new friends with different interests and ideas. I have found that when we move out of our comfortable little shell and open up to new experiences our family can be as big as we want it to be. Taking the opportunity to consciously connect with our brothers and sisters is always ours. That’s how friends are made.