Friendship (is) in the Rapids

Sometimes we have to do things that are hard.

I'm kind of having a "duh" moment, in case you were wondering. But it's late, so I think I am entitled to a few less-than-intellectual realizations. 

Friendships should not be taken for granted. Any relationship, in fact, should not reach the point where it seems to be a permanent fixture in your life and thus does not need as much constant attention. ERROR MESSAGE. Faulty reasoning is at play!

If you rent a car, or a microwave, or even a pair of socks, you know that their presence is temporary, and you treat them as such. You use them a lot for just what they were made for. You try to keep them clean and presentable so that when you return them you don't have to pay extra fees. But for the most part, you use them and ignore them and kind of enjoy them.

But when you save and save and save and SAVE to buy your own car, you are so excited to finally own it that you treat it like gold. You love on it. You clean it. You take care of it. You probably talk to it like it's a friend. It changes from a temporary side-item to something worth so much more. Why? Because you put time and effort into owning it. You chose it. You "earned" it.

In the very same way, any relationship that makes it past the acquaintance we-watch-movies-together-occasionally stage deserves attention and deserves to be made into something of worth. Okay, it's not exactly the same as the car example, because once you have a really good friend you don't "own" them.

But the point I'm trying to knock into my head is this: the more something is in my life, the more attention I should pay to it.

Instead, I start seeing people as fixtures in my life and I'm just swimming through them, doing whatever I please, not realizing that if I care (and I do) I need to make it clear to them and myself that I care. That they are not taken for granted.

Oof. I thought getting past the less-than-true-friends stage meant pushing into more tranquil waters. Ha! That's only the beginning of the rapids! Yet, like Pocohontas, I think that I'd always choose the narrower, wilder path of the river. Because you can't find safety by looking for it.

In fact, I'm not sure that you can find safety at all...

Do you really want to find it?