Word Wednesday

Today's word is Friendship, because it has been coming up rather often lately. I have been blessed with some amazing, truly wonderful people as my friends. For the past three weeks I have been staying with friends on the West Coast, and they have cared for me like family. Even now, as I'm typing this letter, I'm staying at my friends Jeff & Sharon's house. Knowing that I've been a bit down, they have opened their home to me - feeding me, laughing with me, and being my friends.

Here are some words about friendship:

Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more beings. In this sense, the term connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection and respect along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of altruism. Their tastes will usually be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in mutually helping behavior, such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviors. Yet for many, friendship is nothing more than the trustthat someone or something will not harm them.

Value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating the following on a consistent basis:

• the tendency to desire what is best for the other,
• sympathy and empathy,
• honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, especially in terms of pointing out the perceived faults of one's counterpart
• mutual understanding.

:Here Are Some Of My Fabulous Friends:

Christian and Sven, my bandmates and great friends

My roomates and support group, Raksha, Kara and Kim

My friends-since-birth, be-there-whenever-you-need her kickass friend, Julisa

Jeff & Sharon, my fabulous, funny, fun, surf buddies, food buddies, and true believers.

JamieD: Sweetest, Supportive, Surfin Mama

GINA!!! I don't think that there are words to describe her. Wonderful. Phenomenal. Beautiful.

Paulie - the brother that I never had. Family.

Corkill, ah corkill. My creative, colorful sister. 

There are many more friends that I don't have up here, but I love them all!! Probably my best friend of all is my Dad. When you have friends you aren't alone. 

Here are some friend quotes.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin

"What is a friend? I will tell you...it is someone with whom you dare to be yourself." ~ Frank Crane "To know someone here or there  with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed That can make life a garden." "There comes that mysterious meeting in life when someone acknowledges who we are and what we can be, igniting the circuits of our highest potential." ~ Rusty Berkus TYPES OF FRIENDSHIP: ''''Best friend (or close friend): a person(s) with whom someone shares extremely strong interpersonal ties with as a friend.' Acquaintance: similar to a friend, but sharing of emotional ties aren't present. An example would be a coworker with whom you enjoy eating lunch, but would not look to for emotional support. Romantic friendship: the very close but non-sexual friendship shared between two friends, often involving physical contact such as hugging, holding hands, and even cuddling. Soulmate: the name given to someone who is considered the ultimate, true, and eternal half of the other's soul, in which the two are and forever were meant to be together. Pen pal: a person who shares a "postal" relationship with another and regularly writes via "snail mail". They may or may not have met each other in person and may share either love, friendship, or simply an acquaintence between each other. Internet friendship: a widely debated and criticized form of friendship or romance which takes place over the Internet. It is similar to a pen pal, in a sense a "technologically modern" form of pen pals, and the people may or may not have met in person. It's often considered dangerous. Comrade: means "ally", "friend", or "colleague" in a military or (usually) left-wing political connotation. This is the feeling of affinity that draws people together in time of war or when people have a mutual enemy or even a common goal. Friendship can be mistaken for comradeship. Former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges wrote: "We feel in wartime comradeship. We confuse this with friendship, with love. There are those, who will insist that the comradeship of war is love — the exotic glow that makes us in war feel as one people, one entity, is real, but this is part of war's intoxication. [...] Friends are predetermined; friendship takes place between men and women who possess an intellectual and emotional affinity for each other. But comradeship – that ecstatic bliss that comes with belonging to the crowd in wartime – is within our reach. We can all have comrades."[2] As a war ends, or a common enemy recedes, many comrades return to being strangers, who lack friendship and have little in common. Casual relationship or "Friends with benefits": the sexual or near-sexual and emotional relationship between two people who don't expect or demand to share a formal romantic relationship. In the U.S., this is considered "a fling". Boston marriage: a term used in the ninteenth and twentieth centuries to denote two women that lived together in the same household independent of male support. Relationships were not necessarily sexual. It was used to quell fears of lesbians after World War I. Blood brother or blood sister: may refer to people related by birth, or a circle of friends who swear loyalty by mingling the blood of each member together. Open relationship: a relationship, usually between two people, that agree each partner is free to have sexual intercourse with others outside the relationship. When this agreement is made between a married couple, it's called an open marriage. Roommate: a person who shares a room or apartment (flat) with another person and do not share a familial or romantic relationship. Imaginary friend: a non-physical friend created by a child. It may be seen as bad behavior or even taboo (some religious parents even consider their child to be possessed by an evil spirit), but is most commonly regarded as harmless, typical childhood behavior. The friend may or may not be human, and commonly serves a protective purpose. So everyone, call your friend(s) today and tell them how much they mean to you.