inventory

Tonight the world will celebrate the coming of 2012, and rightfully so. I guess I'm right there with everybody else, the only difference, while I am enjoying a fine bourbon I'm also timing contractions. Not a typical way to pass a new years eve, but its all good.

With the turning of the year it seems appropriate to reflect on the past 12 months and take stock of the success and failure. It would be easy to look at bank accounts and possessions to gauge how the year ended up, but a really true measures of where you are at in life calls for a but more introspection. It seems to me that if a person really wants to understand their self worth; one of the true measures is what you have been able to do for the people you count among your friends. I'm not speaking of how many time you bought lunch, or beer, or whatever, but have you been there when they were down. Were you there to enjoy the times they were on top, and did you really relish their good times as much as they did. I expect if you can answer yes to both these questions than your value as a friend out weighs most every thing else that most people associate with worth.

For me, I feel fortunate to be able to count maybe a half dozen people among my friends. Some of them I don't see but once or twice a year,  but that's neither here nor there. For those that have solid relationships time does not seem to be a barrier. In 2011 I was able to renew (face to face) two relationships with old friends that reach as far back as ten or more years. I while I understand that the good times we spent drinking and shooting pool helped to build the relationships, I'm forced to wonder what forged them to the point where time has no meaning. Is it a bond between like souls that can't be explained, or is it something more simple? Truth is I don't know, and I guess, in the end it does not matter.  What really matters is that true friends are never gone.

True Friends are never gone. This is one of the life lessons I learned in 2011. Until this year I have always thought the people drifted in and out of life with no meaning or purpose. Tonight, I'm glad to say that I have learned another way of thinking: our friends are exactly what Webster says they are supposed to be. And I have not even broached the meaning of family relations; which are stronger yet.

I wish each of you a fruitful 2012