TheBanyanTree: Comparison

[NancyIee at aol.com]

This is not a new friendship, being less than two years in the building. We 
are used to each other, like each other, spend a great deal of time together . 
.and enjoy it.  There are vast differences between us, in background and 
interests, yet we meld well, each at least exploring the interests of the other, 
while still finding new things we can both truly enjoy.

There's another friendship, left behind due to distance and other matters.  
We had been friends for eons, since childhood.  We were so close, doing the 
same things, playing the same games, laughing at the same times. Yet, over time, 
we developed other interests, other careers, other social lives. We spent less 
time together, and those times we did share, grew less meaningful. There were 
some old arguments not resolved, old resentments never settled. I guess over 
time, in any relationship, things are said  that are impossoble to take back, 
impossible to forget.  So, when distance and other things make the rift too 
great . .we simply let it go.

We are still friends, in least in the heart.  The things that brought us 
together are still remembered fondly. Yet, being together is not the joy it once 
was.

Which brings me back to the present.  Comparisons.  When there is a 
disagreement with my newest friend, I sometimes compare what was done in the past.  
Never out loud, of course. That would not do, and I HAVE learned a few things in 
the passing decades.

I simply wonder, is this friendship as doomed because of my own stubborness 
and resentments as was the other? Do the things that came between myself and my 
former friend going to do the same thing now?  Do we outgrow friendships?

I am coming to the conclusion that no matter how dear the friend, there are 
differences. We are, after all, not clones.  Is the inability to accept and 
tolerate those diffferences, the sameness of the disagreements, the gradual 
buildup of resentments the bain of friendship's longevity?

This friend is nothing like the other, yet . .there are the same moments of 
disappointment. There are the same struggles of power.  In spite of the great 
joy, there are the things we both need to work on.  Did I and my former friend 
not work on them hard enough?

I need to stop and have some chocolate and ponder this.



NancyLee