You'd think by my age I would have figured out the art of being a good friend. Alas I think I fall way short of the mark. In the past week especially I have discovered that when it comes to the task of maintaining "friendships" I have sucked severely ! So much so that today I am fasting for one friendship in particular.
What I have discovered is that I can have a tendency to become emotionally dependent on people until it not only drains them but myself. Not something I do intentionally, in fact I don't realise that I am doing it, until I look back. I guess I am just as needy as the next person. Because it sure is nice to feel wanted and cherished eh.
Have I been a very good friend to you ? Have you mastered the art of being a good friend ? Can you let me in on the secret.
Much of the past week I have been contemplating just what the secret is. What lesson I can learn from past experiences. How I can grow and what changes I need to make within myself. Quite the little eye opener of a task really, and I still have not discovered the secret.
By the way when I say secret, I am not talking about that new movie that everyone is intent on watching. I know that secret, and I hardly think it's such a big secret either. The principles talked about in that movie we have been taught since primary. I guess sometimes we just need other parties to point that secret out to us, for it to stick.
No no, the secret I am talking about is how to be a good friend and how to maintain lasting friendships. Sure would be handy to know that one.
So yesterday I went on a quest. A quest to photograph. I spent all day travelling this beautiful city. I saw many wonderful sights. When it came to photograph them though, I could not fit what I saw into my lens cap. My friend Abigail is a photographer in the works. Her pictures seem to encapsure a story. Every one of her pictures speak volumes to me. They are not just pictures, they are tales. You look at them and wonder and imagine where that picture came from and what was happening when it was taken and what will happen after. I'd like to be that sort of a photographer.
The best I could come up with was a picture of my dad's grave. I haven't been out there as much in the past few years. But the past few weeks I have visited a couple of times. It struck me how long he has been dead. It still seems like yesterday and I still miss him as much as I did yesterday as I did over a decade ago. So I'll post the only pictures I took. I hope you don't find it morbid. I actually enjoy visiting cemetries. They are like Abigails photographs, the stories from the graves resonnate to me. I wonder about these people laid to rest, their lives, their stories, what they are doing now.
I tried to get the reflections in this photo of the flowers on the next grave. There is so much life at a gravesite. Well at this particular cemetery. It's in the country, the closest cemetery that we could find that reminded us of New Zealand. We thought it a fitting area for dad to be buried.
