Lost and Found..

When I was 13 - the new guy in secondary school - I understood that I would have to plan for friendship. I was not cool by by any stretch of the word. I worked the periphery, the empty space between the cliques. So I studied students at their lockers, tried on attitudes, sat in the front, back, middle of the bus. And I hoped that someone else was looking, too, and would be inspired by something about me..

When you take a stand on friendship, when, in rage, you make it clear - This friendship is over, get out - you are defining the rest of your life. I didn't realize then that you can't make old friends, that you can only lose them. And in losing them, you lose part of yourself.

My uncle who is into gardening, saws off branches to save his trees. "Here's my secret." he'll say. "It's all about caring. About shaving off the bad parts so that you can save the whole. You love something enough, you don't let it die."

Why is it that we need friendship, once we're free of schoolyard bullies, school cafeterias, adolescent identity crises? Once we're out on our own, why do we still yearn? I believe friends enclose us, like a pair of parentheses. Each one knows us in a different way. I am who I am because my friendships keep on growing. But there are limits on the number of friends a soul might have, and there are limits, especially, on best friendships.