'Auld Lang Syne'

The nature of friendship and the journey that my own friendships have taken were things that I was able to reflect on while I was in the middle of the Christmas season. It is, after all, the perfect time for catch-ups and reunions. Over the course of my life, I’ve been blessed with all sorts of friendships – some of them long and meaningful, others short but necessary, others too fleeting and superficial to be called a friendship and still others, unexpected but treasured.

I am always amazed at how my friendships have developed. There are some that I can’t even properly describe much less trace their roots. There are some that seem to have naturally become a part of me and some that I’ve had to work hard and struggle to maintain. There are others that I’ve had to let go, some effortlessly and some painfully.

These days, there are a lot of New Year’s resolution lists that suggest that we just write off negative and toxic people from our lives. This, I’m having a little trouble with because what if ‘negative and toxic’ people are the ones who need good friends the most?

It’s true that we shouldn’t let them dampen our spirits or take away our joy as negative people are wont to do… but perhaps we can make the effort to love them better so that they’ll want to be more joyful. Goodness knows I wasn’t the most accepting or amiable person growing up. But my friends stuck with me. And I can see their influence in my life. I have a friend who’s taught me to see the good side of others.  I have another friend who has been loyal to me to a fault. I have another friend who forces me to look at life from another perspective. And yet another friend whose courage to take on challenges strengthens me. My friends have, for lack of a better word, loved me into being a better me.

So whenever I count the blessings of friends, I count the ones who’ve stayed or at least the ones who’ve kept in touch me. But I’m also learning to see how even friendships that ended or simply faded are blessings in themselves too. Maybe some people are only meant to be in our lives for a particular time. I think at the end of our lives, we’ll be given the grace to see how our lives intersected with each other and how each meeting with each person became (or at least could have been) an opportunity for growth and sanctification.

I never understood why in the movies people sang “Auld Lang Syne” on New Year’s Eve. What does friendship have to do with the year ending? Now I completely understand. The thought of the New Year and of all the adventures and opportunities awaiting in it is both exciting and frightening. And when things like those come up, you want your friends to be around you – old friends who’ve been with you in your darkest hours.

In the new year, I hope I can always be faithful to friends who’ve stayed with me, always open to new acquaintances who might one day become old friends, always forgiving of the faults of others, always humble about my own imperfections and always grateful for the gift of friendship.