F is for friendship

Growing up, I think I was a little bit of a tomboy, in the sense that I did not 'dig' what girls my age talked about or indulged in.My best friends in each of the million schools that I attended were more or less the same.I never had 'girly' girl friends.Dicussions about things like jewellery, clothes, nail polish, waxing and all the items which engage a feminine mind were tabboo and we avoided such girls like the plague.Needless to say, we were never popular with the gals and considered cool amongst the guys.The drawback to this was that basically after a certain age, when all our contemporaries were hormone crazed, we were neither here nor there.:-)Guys were too busy chasing after other girls and the girls were too busy preening, leaving me and my friends with nothing better to do but to wonder as to what was wrong with us.

Thankfully that phase has passed and now I have a great group of girlfriends and man do I cherish them!As I have grown older, I have realized that there's a huge difference in how men and women connect with their friends.It is impossible for me to understand how guys can remain the best of friends throughout their lives but never move beyond cricket scores and general non interesting, non personal conversartions.I may be generalizing, but you have to agree that there is a grain of truth in this.I have seen it with my husband,my brother, my dad, so I have every right to generalize.

With girl friends its so much lovelier.I am ever so grateful to have friends with whom I can discuss my innermost thoughts and imagined worries and always be sure that they will listen to me, lend a shoulder to cry on and not judge me.It is so gratifying to know that when you talk to your girl friends they instantly 'get' what you are saying.They do not try to analyse and provide solutions instantly.They just listen, empathise and most often than not add  a story or two of their own to make you feel that you are not alone in thinking what you are thinking.It is amazing how easy it is to communicate with them.Don't mistake me, my husband is my best friend and it's not that he does not listen to my crap, but you have to agree it's different with women.I am not atriculate enough to put it into words, but I would say that when you indulge in a heart to heart with a girlfriend, it's truly heart to heart.There is true sharing of emotions and not just venting out of feelings.Don't you agree?

I think I will stop here.I clearly suck at writing.Found a nice poem on Friendship.Enjoy that instead.

Oh! think not my spirits are always as light,

And as free from a pang as they seem to you now,
Nor expect that the heart-beaming smile of to-night
Will return with to-morrow to brighten my brow.


No: -- life is a waste of wearisome hours,
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns;
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.


But send round the bowl, and be happy awhile --
May we never meet worse, in our pilgrimage here,
Than the tear that enjoyment may gild with a smile,
And the smile that compassion can turn to a tear.

The thread of our life would be dark, Heaven knows
If it were not with friendship and love intertwined;
And I care not how soon I may sink to repose,
When these blessing shall cease to be dear to my mind.


But they who have loved the fondest, the purest,
Too often have wept o'er the dream they believed;
And the heart that has slumber'd in friendship securest
Is happy indeed if 'twas never deceived.


But send round the bowl; while a relic of truth
Is in man or in woman, this prayer shall be mine, --
That the sunshine of love may illumine our youth,
And the moonlight of friendship console our decline.

Thomas Moore

I am writing all this just to participate in Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Party.The letter this time is F, so here is my entry.


Cheers
Sumi