From a young age we all strive to form friendships, to feel that special moment of ‘oh yes, you get me’ as kindred spirits meet, cautiously at first then unconsciously a life-long friendship is cemented. To have even one two o’clock in the morning friend, on whom to call without fear of disturbing in moments of need, fear, sadness or even celebration is a blessing indeed.
The subject of friends has been on my mind this week as a dear and very close friend celebrated her birthday. As I bombarded her email with birthday messages, some posted here today, the sentimental and poignant quotations struck a chord with me.
Only our truest friends know us to the core, the inner worries, the films and books that will bring us to tears of laughter. Only lifelong friends from young know the ‘whole’ us, events at school, childhood, teenage years that are so instrumental in forming the person of today. Only with them can you reminisce about the broken hearts of young love, the friendship breakups which cut so deep, the scars still raw.
As we exit what is hopefully the haven of home a cloak descends upon us – for better or worse. We can’t help it! In the midst of desperation, a smile will be plastered across our face as we greet others in the street, at work. In a snatched lunch hour an email full of your true feelings will be sent and soon the ping of reply from a good friend brings soothing comfort and support.
Friendships take many shapes and when young you believe friendship is one solely between peers. The sense of joy is overwhelming when you realise how short-sighted, how juvenile you’ve been and a close friendship strikes up between your parents and your more mature self, as a closer warmth and care for your grandparents develops and later you become aware that the security of friendship is found not only in platonic relationships but also in loving ones. This really does feel like hitting the jackpot!
Like relationships, friendships take work – hard work at times! Like relationships there can be break-ups, big ones that reverberate across a large group of people, as the ground shifts, old friendships crumble, new ones are formed. Unlike most relationships, friendships can be sustained for months, even years, with only remote contact – it is amazing how one can sense the others problems, call just at the right time, how easy it is to slot back into relaxed chat after a three-year hiatus apart and pick up the conversation as if from the day before.
The journey of life, with its highs of happiness and lows of loss and suffering, would be unbearable without the constant presence of friends – the shared expedition easing the load, doubling the joy.
As friendships take new format in the world of interconnectedness a new source of inspiration, support and sharing is created. Its warm glow a ray of sunshine and hope on the many bleak aspects of the internet.
So, to new friends here on WP, I ask you to join in a virtual celebratory toast to friendships everywhere!
Annika Perry 
Here’s to friendship! It’s more important than ever in these troubled times.
So true, Liz and I value our friendship very much here! A delight and joy to have met you!
The feeling is mutual, Annika!
Pingback: REFLECTIONS – Annika Perry
Annika, I didn’t realize how much I missed reading your posts until just now. It’s been a long time since we have corresponded on Word Press and I am happy to read that you are still here. I know some people were a little perplexed about why I disappeared. Maybe you were too. The reason was after Andrew died and I just didn’t have the heart to go on and put my thoughts down on paper. Essentially, I have been in mourning. But my husband encouraged me to start writing again and food seemed to not be too fraught with emotion. Of course, now it has evolved into more of a food memoir column which I am enjoying writing. Take good care and I will be reading again soon.
Bernadette, it’s wonderful to reconnect! I have wondered how you were and often checked over at Haddons Musings. Of course blogging became impossible for you. What a good idea to restart with a food (memoir!) blog and I look forward to reading more of your posts. I only happened across it by seeing your name on another post and hoped it was you.
Here’s to meeting up again on WP! Take care xx
During this time, it’s seems essential to surround ourselves (virtually or 6 feet away) with friends who build us up. Sometimes we have to “prune” those friendships that were withering or perhaps not as healthy as we thought. How and with whom we spend our time is the question of the quarantine. I, too, though, have enjoyed meeting new friends online. Be well, Annika!
Evelyn, how wonderful that you came this post from three years ago! 😀 Thank you so much for your lovely comment and sharing your thoughts on friendship.
It can be hard to accept that one needs to ‘prune’ some friendships … realising that the boat of that particular connection has sailed.
Yes, the friendships here online are wonderful and a key component in blogging … I feel blessed indeed.
Wishing you well and keep safe! 🌺
I think I was guided here. And I laughed so hard at the top picture with its writing. So, so true those friendships. They survive simply because they allow us to be ourselves 😀
Great post Annika, and thank you for cheering a soul’s long day 😀
Mark, I’m touched how you were guided to this post from over 18 months ago! 😀 So often we come across people who want to change us, to be like them, who don’t like certain traits within us. It’s easy to succumb, to adapt accordingly but therein lies misery and sadness. Allowed to be oursleves is a true richness and friendship. Mark, thank you so much for your lovely comment and for cheering up me too! 😀
My pleasure…and I’m still smiling 😀
my goodness – this post gave me goosebumps, it was so intriguing – & then you topped it off with the perfect music – thanks much, Annika 🙂
Ahh…thank you so much for your beautiful comment…I’m touched by your words and it’s amazing to know my words have a profound effect. I meant every word…Warmest wishes. Hugs xx😀❤️
Friends talk but real/true friends listen ❤ I was having argument with my close friends and this gave me the courage to apologise to them and I just wanted to thank you for this. ❤ BTW would you mind checking out my post and leaving comment. It is callled Friendships are Hard thanks ❤
Wow! Emma I’m so moved that this has helped repair your friendships. It is easy during arguments to say things that hurt each other but time and reflection often helps to give the space needed. I look forward to taking a look at your blog.
Thanks
Reblogged this on quirkywritingcorner.
Many thanks for the reblog! 😀
Thank you for stopping by, Annika. Nice to meet you and enjoyed your wonderful words on friendship. Lovely post. Kind regards, Iris 🙂
Many thanks, Iris and so glad you enjoyed this post. 😀 Friendships are a core element in all our lives I just felt celebrating this! Great to come across you here on WP and through the past two years I have gained so much joy and appreciation reading poets such as yourself.
It’s a pleasure, Annika. Thank you. 🙂
What a delightful and hearwarming post dear Annika. I for one am so grateful to count you as a dear friend to me, so very glad we met here on WP. Friends are so important. I feel as if my friends are divided into the different phases of my life, before I left to live in America, then while there for almost 20 years and then since I’ve been back again. Those friends who have come and gone for no other reason other than losing touch through moving, circumstances of one kind of another, and those few ‘real’ friends who remain through thick and thin. And then of course, our dear online friends, what an amazing community isn’t it? You’ve made my day! Have a wonderful weekend and see you soon 🙂 ❤ xxx
Sherri, a beautiful celebration and tribute to friends close and far away, to now and the past!🍸 It is difficult if you have moved around to keep all the friends you had and I think I’ve realised much later than you that some friendships are fluid and it is okay that the strings loosen and sometimes the contact is over. New friendships are created, the memories of the others retained. The ones that remain throughout one’s life are real gems and a treasure! Blogging has brought a wonderful unexpected source of new friends and likewise. Sherrie, I’m so happy to have you met you here and count you as a dear friend – both on WP and outside! Hugs ❤️😀
Thank you so much dear Annika…dear friend… 🙂 ❤
A belated but very heartfelt toast from me too Annika. What a beautiful post you’ve written celebrating the gift of friendship. It’s true that sometimes friendships can pick up after a long absence, as though we’ve never had any time apart. I have a very special friendship like that. I can count the number of really close friends on one hand but I know they’re always there for me and that’s what matters. And then of course there’s WP. Who would have thought we’d make so many wonderful friendships on this platform. Cheers indeed. 🙂🍸
Well, Miriam, I’m just having to open another bottle of fizz! 😀 Cheers indeed to your beautiful toast and it is indeed a matter of quality of friendships rather than quantity. So happy to read about your enriching life with your friends, far away and close. Cheers!
So true Annika. It’s the quality of friendship that counts. Enjoy the rest of the week. 😊🍾
This is a belated response, Annika. I am one who has let go of some of my older, original core of friends. Sometimes due to their changing values; sometimes due to their standing still. Each time, I felt relief. Sadly, we may exchange cards or messages but the ones I need are the ones who haven’t had it “easy.” When divorced I met a wonderful friend who I am still close to, we talked after my kids were asleep until we were saying, “I need to go to sleep. . .”
My longest two friends are ones I met while in college, one a waitress who had a baby at age 15 and continued to live a normal high school life, years ago when some may have quietly judged her. She admired my college but never went but of her children all have attended college in one subject area or another. My other friend was my Maid of honor for my first wedding, a man I met my freshman year, same year I met Patrice. We are close but opposites! Friendships like blogging friends may know more of my true self than my real world friends. 🙂 I appreciate your friendship and caring responses when you comment, Annika. ❤
Robin, thank you so much for your lovely and warm comment – full of reflections and wisdom.😀 How true about losing friends who ‘stand still’ in life – that is something I can’t quite understand as my life seems to be a careering roller coaster to which I’m happily clinging. I loved reading about your friends, their courage and tenacity and success with their children. Friendships are a life-force of their own! It’s always a joy and honour to share thoughts and experiences with you, Robin😄
I think your post had me thinking of friendship in a deeper level, Annika. I am pleased you felt this had both reflections and wisdom. What a sweet set of compliments! Thank you. I’m glad we are close blogging friends. 🙂
Pingback: Crazy Friends Friendship – DO U NEED A PERSONAL COUNSELOR
I’m glad we were able to meet while reaching across the ocean in this weird virtual world. Here’s to friendships everywhere!
Sheila, glad I’m not the only one who muses on friendships formed here in the virtual world…it’s lovely to get to know you through blogging and to share stories, experiences…Yep, to friendships everywhere!😀 By the way many thanks for the mention on your blog which I only spotted the other day. ❤️
Friends are so important and I am so happy to have made so many through blogging! A great post Annika! xxx
Thank you so much, Lynz. The support, encouragement and silliness of friends are such a critical element in one’s life and can help make the unbearable bearable. Warmest wishes 😀
So true x
Friendships are so important, people really do enrich our life, and I am so lucky to have many friends on the on-line community too. Life is indeed rich, I am a very happy lady. Happy Valentine’s Annika. 🙂
Marje, I love this wonderful positive comment and your joy and happiness shine through – friendships are key in our lives from a young age and I agree, being able to make new ones online is a real bonus. Hoping you had a lovely Valentine’s. 😀
Ah, thank you Annika. Friendships are indeed so important. I had a lovely Valentine’s. My hubby and I went off for a night away, a day out in Stamford and an evening in a hotel with a spa. I found the lovely onyx egg (in the photo at the top of this blog post,) in an Antique treasure trove in Stamford. All in all it was a rare treat!!! Hope you had a lovely Valentine’s too.
Oh, the egg is beautiful and has such a wonderful aura even just from the photo. So happy about your special Valentine’s, what a treat! We had a more traditional evening at home with prosecco and live music by our son – magical all the same.
Ah, that’s lovely, what a treat too. What instrument does your son play?
He started with the keyboard but now plays piano to a high level. Thanks for asking.
I play a little piano but not too well. It’s my favourite instrument. 🙂
Friendships are wonderful! I think I can easily say I have more friends online in the blogging community that I’ve had in my whole life! Beautiful post, Annika!
Terri, I agree and the friendships here on WP are such an unexpected gift – when I started I had no idea what I was entering into and imagined it would be quite a distant remote affair – oh, I couldn’t have been more wrong – wonderfully so!! 😀❤️
Cheers to all the friendships we grow and nurture in our lifetimes!
Cheers! To such a lovely and perfect friendship toast! 😀
Beautiful words on friendship dear author!
Captured my attention and my heart.
Keep writing and inspiring.
You are excellent at both 😘
Babs, so lovely to hear from you and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your warm and kind message! ❤️With such beautiful encouragement and belief in me how can I not keep writing!😃
wonderfully encourages
friendship
even when it
takes effort
to stay
friends 🙂
David, as always beautifully written and truth in your words. As with everything precious in life it is always worth the effort – friendships are no exception! 😀
Lovely post, Annika. And so true. Good friends are indeed worth their weight in gold… and much more. –Curt
Thank you,Curt and so happy you like the post. Friends are so central in our lives and life would be unimaginable without them – quite lonely and empty. To friends everywhere! 😀
🙂
Lovely images and beautiful writing. Friends are treasures. Thanks for sharing this sweet post Annika. Love it.
Thank you so much, Joel! 😀 Here’s to celebrating friends!! So glad you liked the post.
You’re welcome Annika.
😀😀
Nicely said Annika!
Many thanks, Kathy! 😀
Friendship is a wonderful thing. It is amazing how even after a ten-year gap, my old friend can look me in the eye, smile, and just pick up our conversation where we left it.
“So about that $20 you owe me…”
Haha!! 😀😀. You never fail to make me laugh…always putting your trademark humorous spin on it in the middle of deep wisdom! This is one time you wish the conversation didn’t pick up from where you left it! 😀
Friends are truly an important part of our lives, Annika. You have compiled some wonderful thoughts and lovely sayings paying tribute to friends. I love the adorable Minions, they are so popular with the kids. I have missed my one friend that I lost (it’s almost been two years), and I wish I could see other long time friends more often than sporadically throughout the years. I have made a few friends recently and also treasure my phenomenal blogging friends. I hope you have a lovely weekend!
Thank you for your lovely comment, Lana! 😀😀I’ve loved the minions since we saw Despicable Me in 2010 although my son smiles patiently at my continued liking of them as he and his friends consider them ‘old hat’ (my words not his!) I am so sorry for the loss of your friend. Having moved around a bit I find my friends spread across the country and it’s always hard to meet up as often as you want I find. Making new friends as you have done does help luckily and yes, the wonderful new friendships made here in WP are a treasure indeed and a fantastic unexpected consequence of blogging! Warmest wishes, 😀❤️️
Annika,
This post was simply beautiful. You had tears coming from my eyes. And I consider one the best things to come from my blogging experience is having you for a friend…JC
Happy Valentine’s Day
JC, wow…now you have me tearing up with such an amazing warm comment…Many thanks for this and your friendship here on blogging world! Warmest wishes. 😀❤️️
Wonderful and sweet post, Annika. I love how you extend friendship from the platonic connections of youthful BFF’s to friendships with those we love, then to friendships across the virtual world. All are valid and important. Here’s to friendship. Cheers!
Thank you so much, Diana and cheers to you, my friend! 😀❤️️ This subject has been floating around in my mind for a while, reflecting on friends here on WP (a wonderful unexpected result of blogging!), my friends far away and those close by. All such wonderful support in various ways and mediums. The diversity of modern life eh!
Cheers and blessings, my friend! 🙂
Cheers to you and friendships, Bette! Warmest wishes! 😀❤️️
Friends are those with whom you can be yourself and be comfortable. They accept you for who you are. Nice topic this blog! Enjoyed it, Annika. ^__^
Thank you so much, Mary Ann! I hadn’t meant to write about this topic however it kept coming back to me and the other ideas I had kept being pushed away…I realised this was a subject that was demanding my attention and who was I to ignore it!!😀
What a great post. I have been blessed to have 3 dear friends from Junior High School. We try to get together once a year as we all live in different parts of the West Coast. I have known them for over 50 years. You are comments really resonated with me. I have another friend that I’ve known 30 years. She knows the adult me as we raised our kids together, shared marriages, divorces, and grandparenting. Two more friends that are dear to me with 10 and 30 years whom I see often. Each friendship is special and treasured in a different way. What is really sad, however, is I know so many people who don’t have this. I could really relate to this post.
Jan, I am so glad this post resonates with you. Your experience of your different group of friends in different eras of your life is something I can relate to very well to. They all know a different side to you and you have key shared life events together. What I do find is that the groups of friends do not cross over well and meetings together haven’t been the most happiest or successful. It is hard to imagine life without this care and sharing of friendship and I feel hard for people without it.
A beautiful post Annika rejoicing the joys and sometime tribulations of friendship. I always admire the flow of your prose and carefully spaced images. The Snoopy image stood out for me as I just recently saw the newish (2015) Peanuts movie…very much about friendships…
The Snoopy image is my favourite too, Janice and that is just how I’ve feel when friends have helped out, lifted me up and helped share the burden. Thank you for the reminder about the film..I’ve meant to watch it but keep forgetting!
Interesting and stimulatingas always Annika. While reading this I couldn’t help but think of my close friends – and indeed they are the ones who would take the 2.00am call. Not forgetting those I don’t see very often but when we do meet we pick up as if we had only seen each other a few days previously. Oh – and love the little statements – particularly the minions one!
Mike
Yeah, another minions fan! 😀 Wonderfully manic and odd but a wonderful spirit! It is a treasure indeed to have friends that can be called upon at any time, day or night and glad this gift is in your life, Mike.
Love this post, Annika! It made me realize just how wide my circles of friendship are. Multiple circles, because there are the close friends nearby who will sit up with you all night to help you through a crisis, then the circle of friends who may not be close enough to visit, but will extend supportive energy to you no matter where they are. Thank you for sharing this!
Julie, thank you so much for your reflections on the different forms of friendships and I love your phrase of mutual ‘supportive energy’ between friends, far or near. Isn’t that so true also of blogging friends here on WP! A wonderful source of support, encouragement and understanding. Warmest wishes to you. 😀❤️️
A heart warmer on a bleak Friday afternoon. 🙂 🙂 Just this very evening I’ll be heading out to share times old and new with a group of ladies I’ve known since school. I’ll raise a glass to you, Annika.
Oh Jo, it is equally bleak and grey this Sunday morning! I hope you had a very special and warm time with your friends and that it brightened up your day. How lovely to still have friends from school era, a gift indeed. One of my good friends I met on the first day we moved to the UK as very young and lived next door to us in Yorkshire. – rarely a day went by that we weren’t together and we still meet up but alas less often owing to distance apart. Cheers to you and friendships, Jo! 😀❤️️
🙂 🙂
So much truth here. Mostly friends are there for normal times, but sometimes, to get that moniker is a baptism by fire. They must survive horrid circumstances and still come out believing in you. These people, I so value.
Jacqui, a comment full of truth and beauty recognising the hidden depths of absolute friendship. Even one or two is a treasure through life!
I am off soon to meet two of my best friends for a luncheon date. I will toast with them “to friendships everywhere!” Indeed, good friends are precious and must be cultivated and watered (well, maybe, wined). I am so glad I read your post this morning. Thanks, Annika 🙂
Carol, I hope you had a wonderful luncheon date with your friends and how lovely to toast ‘friendships everywhere’. We toasted too last night when we shared a small prosecco last night. Haha…I had to smile at your watered & wined comment!! 😀😀 Yep, like so much in life friendships have to be nurtured and cared for.
That’s a tremendous expression, ‘a two o clock in the morning friend’. I’ve never really considered it but… I’ve not been blogging long and have forged some splendid friendships already and genuinely believe if I posted an urgent short story or verse at 2am, some of those bloody damn fine blogging friends would read it. In the morning, once daylight’s had a bit of breakfast and read the morning mail but it’s a start 🙂 Lovely post Annika, thanks 🙂
Phil, I’ve actually had to call on friends at that time in night / early morning for help and it’s wonderful to know they are there and will come out, whatever! As for blogging sometimes I have written during the night when I couldn’t sleep and got replies – mostly from friends in the States where it was still evening! So glad you liked the post and many thanks for your comment. 😀
Having such friends reflect well on both parties 🙂
This is a wonderful Valentine to those friends we love – both here on earth with us and the ones that have passed and are sorely missed.
Such a beautiful comment, Bernadette and I can only echo your words – to friends living and to those sadly passed on. Warmest wishes to you.
Reblogged this on O LADO ESCURO DA LUA.
Many thanks for the reblog!😀
Nice post Annika. You might be interested in a recent post of mine where I explored books about female friendship:
https://francesmacken.com/2017/02/02/reading-list-books-about-female-friendship/
I’ve also got a list going on Goodreads if you’d like to peruse it!
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/108403.Books_about_Female_Friendship
All the best 🙂
Thank you so much, Frances and glad you enjoyed the post. 😀 I’m going over to your blog and look forward to reading your post on books about female friendships.
Yes here’s to good friends of all kinds, at home and in our blogging sphere. Cheers!
I join you in that lovely toast, Barbara! 😀 Cheers!
A beautiful and enlightening post Annika. Messages portrayed with love. Yes, we can love friends as family. When we meet that kindred spirit and deep inside we know there will be that connection forever. Neither time nor miles can break that most wonderful and welcome bond. Your post today has given me a warm feeling and brings to mind some that have passed on but will never be forgotten. Have a great weekend. xo
Patricia, thank you so much for your wonderful warm comment which likewise has given me a lovely warm glow of happiness. Reading this brings to mind a very close friend I made as a child during a holiday. For a week we’d been ‘circling’ each other until one day she dared to talk to me – and we didn’t stop for the rest of the holiday! Then we did meet up now and then, wrote letters etc but during various moves lost contact. That felt tough and still a bit like a loss to this day.
If you remember her, it’s not a loss, just a short separation. One day you will meet again. Hugs.
Thank you for saying so, I felt a calm warm reassurance reading your comment. 😀
Thank you Annika, this wonderfully loving, deep and wise post took my breath away.
And yes, ending with Abba’s beautiful song had me cry gentle and healing tears.
The cards you posted to us – and to your lucky frind , are each one full of fun and wisdom.
I feel blessed sharing this
Mirja
Oh no, Mirja, I didn’t mean to have you in tears! 😀 Happy ones do feel so soothing at times, though…Thank you so much for you warm kind words – and hope you’ve got your breath back now!😀😄 I must admit I didn’t realise there were so many cards such as these on the internet and I got carried away sending them to my friend as so many summed up our (and others) friendship perfectly.❤️
I’ve only been able to count on a very few friendships in my life, and I do treasure those.
Sharon, this is so true and personally it took me a long time to learn that it isn’t the quantity of friends around that counts rather the depth of those existing friendships! Warmest wishes to you. 🙂
Absolutely, and that’s what I was thinking – the few I consider to be my truest friends are there for me even when we disagree – as I am for them. The number are low but the relationships are sincere.
Annika, how are you feeling now? I hope you’re doing much better since your ankle got twisted.
Thank you so much for asking, Sharon…my ankle is much better and almost healed although niggling pain and restricted movement – I just dislike going to the doctor’s but might have to resign myself to checking out whether I can get it fully well. Hope you’re keeping well.