You Make Me Feel Brand New

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

As you grow in awareness and empathy, you may find that some friends do not keep up; they gossip, dishonor persons with disabilities, are politically selfish and complain about everything. It’s not something that just started because maybe you participated or tolerated such attitudes until you could no more. It can be hard to turn the page on those relationships. Moving forward does not mean you write them off. You need to recognize the contours of your new friends and why these relationships are different.

Please do not overlook the special character of the new friends who are graciously trying to make their way into our orbit.

You might have subconsciously or even consciously kept your friends in categories, and the categories may have determined whether a person was eligible to be an intimate. Perhaps they were slotted into female, male, elder, child, and adolescent. Maybe they were of a particular nationality or economic class.

Your new friends may surprise you because they don’t fit a profile. They just are. Your new friends will make you new, too, and they have only met the new you.

New friends do not typically force themselves on you, but it will be a dance that lacks the awkwardness you may have anticipated. They arrived for such a time as this. You must not squeeze them into the emotional molds of prior friendships, even if you have great memories, because those memories come with their share of mental achiness.

 

 

 

 

 

Brittney Griner

we love you.

Brittney Griner we love you.