Family!

There are so many. Friends become brothers, sisters. Much younger ones become sons, daughters. The feeling is natural. Love expects nothing tangible in return, but certainly feels reciprocation, or not. Yet many others have tried to befriend me, and I too have tried to befriend them, but some chemistry just does not work. I try to determine if that not-so-right feeling is just my being judgmental, or my being too this or that, but I have enough friends across the whole spectrum of differing physical, temperamental, and achievement types to know that no specific criteria applies. There is some magical component that simply allows for friendship, a reciprocal love, or not. And there are very few people indeed, especially at my age, that I actively dislike. For you too? As a friend recently put it, "I remind myself to look for that bit of the good in each and everyone."

Jung would have it that those without brothers (or as for me misses brothers and a sister) will have this shadow-side that is more open to making non-relational others substitute for brothers or sisters. Yet more complex, should one feel they are betraying the love of an absent brother, some may purposefully eschew feelings of brotherly love for a friend. Some, if they do not like their siblings, will not easily like others in their stead, or will like others even more for the lack of familial love. And so on. We are complex creatures. And without examining and re-examining our senses, our very instincts, we can be afraid to pick up grass snakes, simply because they look as dangerous as any other of the same image. Most of us just go about liking or disliking each other at whim. And some of us feel at one time great affection for someone, but at other times hardly anything at all. We are creatures of time and circumstance, needs and wants, sensations and feelings. And the vast majority of us, the research would have it, just couldn't be bothered with having a look into the wherefores and why-for of much of it all. As Sanchez sings, "I like him, I really like him! He's me mate, me chum, my bro, my main man and that's..." a story with a different tune, until you disinterest him.

Accord is the thing! We glance into another's eyes and almost immediately there is a sense of kismet, or not. For you too? And some of us have not seen each other in years and years and it makes no never mind; we instantly feel genuine and connected, while with some, just some, there is a hesitancy, a stand-offishness, as though one has to prove oneself before being accepted again. Expectations tend to lead toward that last set of circumstances. But being entirely open and unconditionally accepting removes such barriers. Still, one wonders if you'll like A's new life choice, B's new habit, C's new convictions, or D's intended new spouse. And so the separation of common interests and the past from the present can begin. Staying connected can at times be an effort.

But brothers and sisters and sons and daughters, especially if taken for granted in the nicest sense of the phrase, are always there. They open up a door to you after several months or more of absence and instantly you know you're at home with the person. The listing here of my friends would be at a risk to leave someone out. I am deeply grateful for the privilege of such connections, for the trust we give each other. It matters not that we have not written, have not acknowledged birthdays, have not shared. The love is in those moments of sharing time, of connecting, of seeing into each other's eyes. Always.

Family!