Thank you, dear friend

Yesterday, a 30-year-old friendship received a needed tune-up.

Many years ago, while young and single and living in Anchorage, Alaska, I met a beautiful, free-spirited yet introverted girl named Kathleen.

Webster defines anomaly as 'deviation or departure from the normal or common order, form, or rule'. Kathleen was my anomaly. Where I was a people pleaser, she didn't appear to give-a-rip. I followed the rules (and, in the process, made a few of my own). Rules were momentarily considered by Kathleen but quickly discarded if they were irrelevant in her thinking. Kathleen had an esoteric mystique surrounding her that intrigued yet simultaneously frustrated me because I couldn't quite figure her out.

Somewhere, somehow, in spite of our vast differences, we became close friends. We have buckets full of memories that bring about great merriment when we meet. We have mementos in the form of handmade cards and little gifts and each of us has a large manila envelope stuffed with letters from the other written throughout the years. Although intangible, my friendship with Kathleen is one of my most highly esteemed and treasured possessions.


Which brings me back to the present....

Wise Kathleen gently exhumed skeletons of past behaviors which could be hindering the current flow of our friendship.

As we mature into the beautiful souls we are, we discard attitudes and habits which, at one time, determined our perception of reality. Like the sticky residue left from a label that resists being peeled off a product, we find ourselves unintentionally judging another based on repetitive behavior from long ago. "I can never depend upon him - he's always late." Or, "Don't tell her - she's a terrible gossip."

People do change. If we do not give forward momentum to said change by allowing it to be, then we thwart the growth in the life of another.

Let's celebrate that growth by freeing each other from the confines of old behaviors.

Thank you, dear friend, for continually showing me grace in this area. I vow to do the same.