‘Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart’ – Eleanor Roosevelt
We’re back in the UK after trekking back north of the equator via Dubai. It was a novel experience to come back to sunshine rather than grey clouds and rain; one I’m happy to repeat.
Within 24 hours we were back at an airport to meet up with our son and daughter-in-law and set out together to celebrate their marriage with friends and family who couldn’t make the trek last year (August 2025 in Kwa Zulu Natal) before said couple got on yet another plane to head west across the ocean for another 9 months in the USA.
I always enjoy a gathering of the clans. The down side of these moments is that in the buzz of seeing so many loved ones at one time, in one place, it’s difficult to have a truly meaty conversation with many of them. You can be left wondering when you’re going to see any of them again and racking your brains for how you could contrive to manufacture another occasion of similar ilk.
Having all four of my children plus partners in the same geographical spot for the first time was a treat I haven’t been able to enjoy for at least two years.
As I take another breath and regroup somewhat, reflecting on the day, the connections, the laughter and the fun of catching up with so many people is another treat. While there are always gaps of people who couldn’t make it – life, as they say, gets in the way – with health challenges, bereavements, last minute emergencies etc. it’s good to focus on the positives.
One of the great but disquieting discoveries of adult life is the realisation that friends are not all the same. Some cross our path for a season. Some we lose touch with, sometimes for ever, sometimes for a few years and then meet up again as if no time at all has passed. This is the difference between friends of the road: those we meet, enjoy and whose own path subsequently diverts from our own, and friends of the heart with whom we experience life on a deeper, richer level. They share our values, know our faults, flaws and foibles but love us anyway; they truly have our best interests at heart, can gently rebuke us and challenge us as well as encourage us in every stage of life.
My philosophy has always been that if I’m your friend, I’m your friend for life. That hasn’t changed, but I realise that how it looks changes over time. I’ve mistaken a friend of the road for one of the heart before and found myself sorely disappointed. I’ll never ‘drop’ someone because we don’t agree about everything (that way leads to bubbles and ghettos) but it’s unrealistic to think that prioritising relationships isn’t required. There are only so many hours in the day, and authentic investment in nurturing relationships means we can’t keep up the same level with everyone. It doesn’t mean we care about them any less. That’s still hard for me to wrap my head around, although I know it’s true.
I’m delighted that in recent years I’ve restored conduct with my best friend from primary school. I’m also seeing more of my friend with whom I enjoyed youth group, camps, and is probably the reason my French is not as good as it would have been had we not messed about quite so much at the back of the class (she probably feels the same!). Next month, a sixth form friend and I are going to Yorkshire to visit the mutual school friend with whom I wrote long-winded scripts and skits including our prefects pantomime. I haven’t seen her for 37 years and am grateful that Facebook brought us back into one another’ orbit.
Prior to that, my sisters and I are off to Devon for a week as we take a trip down memory lane to the region where my grandparents lived. No summer holiday was complete without a fortnight with them (I’ve blogged about this experience several times in the past). Although they have been partying with the angels for many years now, we will be visiting a couple of our farming friends with whom we spent so many happy hours in the 1970s and early 80s. Farming has not been kind over recent months as Jeremy Clarkson has so eloquently and bluntly shown us all. My memories are of harvest, milking cows, collecting eggs, muddy wellies, riding a horse, learning to drive on a tractor the pedals of which I could barely read, mending fences and eating the kind of meals only previously encountered within the pages of an Enid Blyton book. Fabulous!
Old friends, new friends, ageing friends, special friends; we’re privileged to have so many across numerous spheres. Diagrammatically, those groups seldom cross but to have met so many quality people on our journey so far, and to be able to count among them true friends of the heart is an enormous privilege.
So, here’s hoping you’ve had a glorious summer (coming in at the tail-end after a winter in Cape Town, I’m willing it to continue for a few more weeks, please) and the opportunity to spend time with your friends and celebrate one another without requiring a particular occasion to do so. Here’s to many more!
[Images: my own archive & thanks to Pixabay x2]
dancingthroughchaos 