I have a bit of trouble answering a question that often gets asked in those first few awkward conversational moments meeting a new neighbor , co-worker or any other casual acquaintance who cares to dig a bit deeper – the question of origin – “where is home for you”?

Home is a bit of an ambiguous thought for me as my family and I have had the privilege of living in multiple locations.  If you ask me where I grew up I can answer that pretty succinctly.  If the nature of your query is about where I go home for the holidays, I have a bit more trouble with that because, as is the reality for us all, home never stays the same because the details change.   Parents grow old and pass on; siblings move away, the family business changes hands or the family “home” gets sold.  Sound familiar? Too much time spent reminiscing in this direction can leave one longing for a past that may actually not have been quite as rosy as remembered.

If you reflect long enough to peel back the layers and clear out the cranial cobwebs one begins to land on a few transferable and common themes.  Most often it will be relationships and the people around us that create the shoreline coming into view on an otherwise foggy and overcast lake.  To extend the metaphor a bit further; we may float away for a time, paddle in a different direction and even go through seasons of uncharted seas but eventually we will seek land and when we do it is friendship that helps us find our footing and solid ground.

As mentioned earlier my family and I have had the opportunity to live in several different places throughout the years and have made amazing friends in those locations. In fact when we think of those various places we have been fortunate enough to hang our hats for a season we most often talk about the people, our friendships and the characters that give texture to place.

We have had the experience of looking in the rear view mirror and being incredibly thankful for good friends.  With that comes another question – one that leads to a deeper level of reflection and self analysis than we may be completely comfortable with. The question is this: would those people with whom our rear view mirror is filled give the same reflective analysis of their experience with me? In other words what I am asking is have I been a good friend?

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it this way; “the only way to have a friend is to be one”.  I think that one of the obvious and telling aspects of what categorizes true and deep friendship is whether or not they are reciprocal in nature.  Perhaps Emerson would agree but I suspect that if we spent more time refining the art of being a friend now we would look to the future with something more akin to hope not a longing for a past.   And the irony of this reality is that when one lives that way we end up with “old friends” now.  And to quote Emerson again; “It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them”

Be a good friend and here’s hoping all your “stupid” isn’t in the rear view mirror!