I laughed when my best friend told me the name he had saved for me to blog on. I laughed because he knows me so well and has read and listened to my rambling scrambled thoughts and monologues over the years that only he could have come up with a name like that. It fits me so well that it makes me squirm like trying on a piece of clothing that fits you so well and makes you feel so darn good about yourself that you don’t even need to look at the price tag – you know that it will be outside of your price range – and then having someone say they are giving it to you. Free, for being who you are in their life.
This is the the way that I feel many times about real friendship! I have been very blessed by friends that I have in my life. Many times I feel surprised when they respond to something I say, pointing out valid flaws in my reasoning or telling me something that I do really well or maybe the reason behind the action I just took or arguing with me.
What this really is is relationship and I’ll be frank with you I love it but also hate it at times. It also motivates me, inspires me, makes me angry, lifts me up and brings me down, changes my mind or solidifies my argument, makes me feel completely exposed and also protected all at the same time. It brings value to my life that can’t be bought with money. Something I can’t run away from and yet wouldn’t trade for anything.
The birthplace of these types of friendships is vulnerability – the willingness to let it all hang out and be seen by a few people. honesty, the end of fear and the willingness to wrap your arm around their shoulders and splint the leg as long as they are willing to keep moving. None of this happens when we hide and posture and protect how we want to be perceived.
I’m flying back from a trip with a friend that was completely spontaneous. On the adventure we discussed, plotted, schemed, philosophized, laughed and argued…a lot. I think that is one of the best parts of friendship…it is safe to engage, disagree, confront and move through it to the other side to resolution if you are willing to stick with it. No passive aggressive BS allowed!!
It is the unwillingness of men to engage in the conflict and actually maybe have their minds changed because we are not willing to be perceived as weak that has lead to a couple of generations of what I call the “man child syndrome”. Passive men who spend their days involved in the dreaming and never the action. Grown men playing video games, stuck in their computers, fantasy football, pornography, and other addictions – living vicariously through their televisions and never really engaging in life or relationships.
It been said that “most men lead lives of quiet desperation, and die with a song in their heart”. By most estimates the majority of men older than their mid twenties don’t have even one or two other men that they would classify a true friends that they trust completely.

I refuse to let this happen to me! I will continue to engage and fight for friendships. Authentic messy and emotional but REAL – and won’t settle – but will continue to challenge myself and my friends to lean into the wind. Embrace vulnerability and feel…really feel the moment, the now the present and live there…for as long as I live! This is life…and there is safety here because it is the only thing in life that is actually real!