The Friends You Choose Together

I’m overcome with appreciation of true friendship. Never in my life have I seen it in as great detail or soaked in its beauty, quite as I have in this leg of my journey.

I’ve always valued the variety of friends I’ve had in my life. They have taught me so much about the world and myself. We all march to a slightly different drum, but we share a love for rhythm.

Each holds unique stories of love, pain, struggle, and triumph. Each complements a piece of me.

I’ve shared many a moment with one such friend in my life.

We were placed in each others’ worlds in a grand master plan written by another – I’m sure of it. Our relationship has grown and stretched in many different forms over the years into what is now an undefined and uncontainable entity. I would identify it as a feeling more than a label, really.

When someone can be both your rock and your pillow.

When someone can not only cushion your fall, but help spring you back on your feet.

When someone can hear youover their own thoughts.

When someone can laugh with you until you nearly wet your pants.

When someone can leave you feeling like you’re not alone in your walk.

We soaked those friends up and shared a happy place recently.

Our boys are growing into little men – year-by-year, skill-by-skill, experience-by-experience. Witnessing them exercising their growing independence, stretching their wings, is both a blessing and a practice.

Watching our girls play together, little versions of our inner girls, well that’s indescribable.

We shared stories, crafts, new adventures, and this beautiful space.

We seriously can’t get enough of these reeds and added to our craft array of crowns, roses, and ropes with nature-made dreamcatchers.

A bouquet gathered by the girls along our walk gained volume and beauty with each new treasure found. A sudden gasp heard from up the path was our cue to make room for more.

Magic…  snugging between my babes in our wing of Poppy Wagon on the last night of our trip. With the comfort of knowing our friends were nestled in the other wing, the kids and I stared in awe through our screen window at the magnificently full Sturgeon Moon glowing in the night sky, perfectly framed by the dancing silhouettes of oak leaves. There were few words, just feelings as their breath became heavy I felt them drift off to sleep in my arms.

There are the friends you choose for your children. There are the friends your children choose for you. Then, once in a while, the planets align and there are the friends you choose for yourselves, together. To those…

XOXO, friends –
J