I'VE BEEN THINKING

I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately. I've been thinking about what is reasonable to expect from a friendship, and what is not. 

I've been thinking where I fall on those things.. where I'm a good friend, where I'm not.  Where I have been and where I haven't.

I've been thinking about honesty, and what that means. I've been thinking about how honesty isn't just "not lying" and how misleading inferences and omission of the truth is just as dishonest as outrightly speaking lies.

I've been thinking about respect and the importance of showing up... and how it really isn't that hard.

I've been thinking about grace and forgiveness. I've been thinking about patience.

I've been thinking about the pulling-in that happens when someone speaks unkindly to you.

I've been thinking about all these things...  and perhaps sometime, I'll be ready to write more about them.  

But today, I'm just thinking about them.

THE TRUTH IS STILL THE TRUTH

Why oh why do some lessons seem so interminably hard to learn??

Our perceptions of the truth change.  But the truth doesn't.

Just because the truth is hard....
Just because the truth is difficult to accept...
Just because the truth is unpleasant...

It doesn't mean it's not the truth.

Just because I don't want it to be so...
Just because it hurts me...
Just because I want to run away from it...

It's still the truth.

I can hide from that.
I can try to bite it off in small pieces to make it more palatable.
I can pretend until the cows come home.

But the truth is still the truth and it won't ever stop being the truth.

And I'm just going to have to suck on that for awhile.