The Best Gifts Aren’t the Shiny Ones

Now, I love a good shiny gift, don’t get me wrong. Like the perfect silver chain with a heart charm that my friend Carol gave me… Or the beautiful silver pearl charm, with a little dangly diamond on it that my sister Maureen gave me!

But sometimes it’s the ones you just have to dust off a bit to remember how truly valuable they are. Family is SO important and treasured, but I believe it’s the friends in our lives that provide total enrichment. With *true* friends, you don’t have to put on a face… You don’t have to pretend that everything is ok! And, even if life is mostly great, it is your friends who will listen and try to help you with what is not. It’s a safe and fair place to vent because your friends—especially those you’ve had most of your life—know your history and what makes you tick. You don’t have to re-explain your past in order to help them understand your present. Perhaps they will provide you some insight that you didn’t have before? Or, at worst, they will have listened and maybe helped you give yourself the insight you needed. Being listened to is sometimes all you need.

I truly love my friends in San Diego and they help to enrich my life on a regular basis. But these aren’t the people who know it all! It is difficult to live so far away from my close childhood friends whom I’ve known for 26-35 years. But we always pick up right where we left off and I treasure the time I get with them. We all need to make an effort to reach out and to see each other more… Life gets in the way for all of us for different reasons and it’s my hope that we will make more time.

It’s the gift of friendship that I need to remind myself to collect on because it doesn’t cost a penny, but gives so much in return. Let’s all resolve to approach 2011 with the intention of dusting off those awesome friendships and keeping them as shiny as we can.