I dont know what makes a true friend, but i have my suspicions. Ive met a lot of people over the years and socialised in a lot of places and though some people come and go, others have remained constant. Ive only got a dozen or so real friends, and i value them greatly. It has to be said though i suck at staying in touch. Stuart, one of my best friends i talk to only 2 or 3 times a year and thats on a good year god knows whats going on in Basties life!
Maybe for 2011 i will try to stay in touch a bit more. Technology certainly should be making it easier, i have video conferencing with my parents now! Real friends though its possible to not see or talk to for years at a time and you can just pick up with them as quickly as you left off. All of my friends are really good. I dont share common interests with all of them but in some cases just common traits. To be honest i dont often miss them, im normally too focused on whatever i am doing, but sometimes when i slow down i give them a thought.
Its funny the extent that some people impact on your life; i remember very few people i went to college with, yet today i spoke to somoene i havent seen in 18 years, and it felt like we had spoken only yesterday. Its so easy to talk to some people, and its funny the people you find yourself attached to. Some people redefine you, some people you love in ways that are so intense its hard to describe; and thats not always a romantic thing; not everything is about sex, some people just touch the soul.
Some people you lose touch with and always wonder where they are and what they are doing. Sometimes, just sometimes, you are lucky enough to reconnect.
Owen Richardson's Blog 
good friends
/ January 1, 2011A thought: could it be that you redefine yourself…not your friend…by asking for help and accepting it? You do the job actually…you are the driving force. You become what you are meant to be from the beginning…so simple!
Owen Richardson
/ January 2, 2011Took me a while to get my head around that comment. It seems you think i should be asking for help of my friends; when i need help i do, but in truth thats extremely rare. In short although i am undergoing a constant process of redefining myself, but i rarely actually think i need help, and im not the sort of person who goes whinging to people and needs a lot of emotional reassurance. I dont know or care in truth what i am supposed to be. I am what i am.
Owen Richardson
/ January 4, 2011… i just read that back and maybe it makes me sound like a miserable bastard … and maybe actually in some ways i am!!!
Me
/ January 2, 2011A good friend said to me that friends are in your life for specific times in your life and then they’re gone. I remember being very upset with him for saying this but I see now he was being honest. A specific time may be long or short I guess, Some people come and go others linger some are a constant ‘a North star’ at least for as long as they are your point of reference. Sometimes I like to be in touch with people who have known me who take me back to who I was, to my dreams. I am then able to appreciate what I have been given, what I have achieved, who I have met and what I have survived. Friends are stars in the sky and you are seen
Owen Richardson
/ January 3, 2011I cannot argue with that! I think I’ve been appearing and disappearing from friends lives for years now and I like your analogy of the north star – there is definately something that brings us back to our friends when we are lost… Beautifully put!