starting over

So I haven't posted since before Christmas.
Not much has happened here, except...the holidays.
We are in 2013, if, like me, you have a hard time believing it.
I had so many things I wanted to write about. Post Christmas. And New Year. And the French. And backlog posts I promised a few months back.
I'll make a salad out of this post. Kidding, going one by one :)
Today, something that's been on my heart lately.

Starting with the famous New Year resolutions. And like it or not we should all have at least one for each new coming year no matter how perfect our life is.

1. Sorting through friends. Not as easy as sorting through your folders for this one actually implies sorting feelings. Tough one to do, but necessary I would say.

I was browsing Facebook yesterday and I came about the post below. Funny because I was thinking about this a few days back and pondering over some relationships I cannot define quite well-

 

You can't force people to like you or hang out with you, no matter how much you care.
And then we all need friends, true friends that is. Not talking about the Facebook kind of friends, even if we do have friends on Facebook as well (except real friendships just don't work like that); Facebook is great for keeping in touch with aquaintances and the name 'friends' is very well thought and adapted. Talking about the friends you know you can count on.

You all know the saying:
"Friends are the family we choose for ourselves"; touching on another subject I was long planning on writing - this "migration" some of us undertake in our lives and all the consequences it involves in what it concerns friends and friendships.

I used to think I had lots of (real) friends. When I first left home I had them. I could have counted about 5 real girlfriends. With time relationships evolved or devolved. I moved to the US, kept in touch for a while with my BF (best friends). I say for a while because when I first went back I must have changed so much, not to say they have, that I had come to discover girls I did not recognize. It shocked me. Did I really change that much? I like to think not, but then it is true that each of us have, except in different directions. It hurts even today when I think about it. I still go back often enough and...wish I still had my friends there.

I made my friends "over" in Chicago and they are what I consider my BF today. With family far away, they became my family. They cared to care. I am thinking, with not an unsignificant amount of fear, with my move again to France will I be able to keep my BF from Chicago? Or will we all change again to the point of  "no care"? We are mature now, we shaped our personalities and the dangers of big changes are not imminent. The geographical distance does sometimes challenge relationships, but then it is ultimately up to us and to how true of a friend we are to keep going.

Needless to say I restarted the "making friends process" in France, except with age it becomes tiring, slower. After 30 we like our comfort zones, we have our schedules, our own families. Yet I cannot imagine my life without friends. Friends are family.

Talking about sorting friendships means just finally letting go on those who want to go and nurturing those who are right behind us no matter what, no matter the distance and differences that come with life. ...

May you have a year filled with moments spent with friends :)