Quality of Friendship

This past weekend my wife and I headed up to New Hampshire to visit my home town.  My wife got to pursue her passion – shopping while I indulged in one of my favorite activities – drinking beer with a good friend.  I have very few friends that I consider “close”.  I have a great many people I consider friends but again, very few that I would classify as close friends.  In my military career, friends would come and go with the regularity of my change of duty station which forced me (and my family) to constantly meet and acquire new friends as we moved around the world.  One of the things I loved about the military was the camaraderie – the bond between soldiers that really goes beyond friendship.  When you train to fight and possibly die with the guy sitting next to you – bonds are formed.  These bonds are however by the very nature of the profession that creates them, short lived and constantly formed and re-formed.  I have hundreds of “friends” from my military career but only two or three that I stay in touch with and that contact is sporadic – nature of the beast – we have all moved on and are dealing with civilian life.  I think that is why I value the friendship of those “close” friends – all of whom date back to my life prior to the military.  I think as you go through life you end up getting defined by what you do for a living.  Having friends that knew you before all the trappings of life get hung on you is important.  I can just sit down with these close friends and pick up a conversation as though we saw each other every day despite the vagaries of life and physical distance that makes that impossible.  One of the great joys in my life is to spend an afternoon with this close friend, drinking beer in a hometown (that I love) bar.  I enjoy bantering with him about life in general, why tight pants work on some waitresses but not others, and other such lofty, cerebral discussions.  He’s even one of the two or three people that read this blog, so thanks for being such a great friend and for telling me when my verbal filter starts to fail (usually the 5 or 6 beer point).  The overweight waitresses in tight pants do not realize the debt they owe you.

Elm City Brewery, Keene, NH - Great Place to Spend an Afternoon Avoiding Shopping