Friendship

A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself-and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. - Jim Morrison

While I am not a big fan of Jim Morrison or the Doors, I find quite a bit of truth in the above quote. AND I am IN NO WAY comparing Jim Morrison to Jesus or anything Holy....BUT the quote reminds me of 1 Corinthians 13:7-10 (Message Bible)

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

I think that the secret of love/friendship is allowing the other person to be who they are without making them feel like they have to put up a front or be who they want you to be......

I also think that if you love someone and you do something that is just something you do and you know it bothers that person....the same person who allows you to be you and loves you anyway...that you should try to shy away from doing that thing.....not to be someone you aren't but out of respect to that persons feelings.

For example.......


I have a friend that goes to the commissary with me and crazy kids (anyone who knows my kids knows that this person and the other person who make regular trips with me are TRUE BLUE friends!).

So we went a couple of times....and I have a habit......if I am not close to the cart return thingy....I just stick my cart out of the way somewhere. I thought about it and I am thinking it came from all those days when I went shopping by myself with my four small children, all who needed some kind of assistance to get buckled in. Once I got all of them buckled in and the stuff unloaded from the cart I wouldn't take the cart back because I didn't want to leave the kids in the car by themselves.

Anyway...we went shopping a couple of hilarious times and each time I would leave my cart...one time she kindly put it back for me without saying a word:) But a couple of weeks later she posted in a forum we both belong to...when asked what her pet peeve was.....people who don't put their shopping carts away. I of course waited a couple of weeks and busted her chops...most lovingly!

NOW when we go shopping together I put the cart back...or have one of the little darlings put the cart back. WHY you ask? Well, because she never said a word and still had a smile on her face when she would put my cart back, I felt that as her friend I could do it myself to show her my love...after all she just came from the commissary with me and at least 2 of my kids....that's real love....so it won't kill me to put the cart away. Besides......it was just a habit I had carried over from when the kids were younger.....why give my friend the peeves over it?