The Family You Choose

No family encourager blog will be complete without dedicating one or more entries to the family I have chosen. The family we are born into, is ours to have, like it or not! (That could probably fill a few months worth of writing!) Lucky for you, today I am not writing about that!

My friends are my tribe, my team, my pack, the people that carry me through life. I hear soul mate bandied around all the time. I always wonder what that means? The definition of soul mate is "a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner". The truth is that your soul mate does not have to be a romantic partner, it could easily be a soul sister or brother. Yes, I have male friends that have been especially extraordinary in my life.

I have been blessed in my life, that wherever the world has taken me, I have met amazing hearts that have made my new journey worth it and that balanced the "new place" feeling with an "at home" feeling.

Humanity has innumerable talents. Every human is born with some or worked diligently at some. One of my talents is friendship! To seek it, keep it, and to nurture it. Yes its a talent, ye sarcastic ones. 

I am now in the fourth decade of my life, which has its own challenges. The love and affection of "my clan" of beautiful friends makes those challenges less insurmountable and puts them into perspective. 

In sickness and in health, for better or for worse, should be part of the unseen friendship contract. My life has been enriched by infinite blessings. My journey has taken me to hopeless places. As I have soared with the angels or bottomed out with the devil, my tribe was there to share in it. A little supporting hand, made all the difference. A person that "gets" you. A person that nods in the right places and makes you feel you are heard. A person that unselfishly is happy for you in your success, that is bonded in your pleasure, that wants to shout over the treetops with you when life is treating you well.

As all of us, by the time you get to my age, have had loss, sickness, grief, remorse, regret, guilt, shame, misery, happiness, joy, love, peace, comfort, bliss, cheer, unity, charity, contentment, enchantment. All of the above, if shared with a understanding soul either doubles in positivity or halved in negativity. 

I want to thank from the bottom of my heart, the multitude of life voyagers that have touched my life. The lady I ran after in the street in England and asked her if she spoke Arabic, that became my friend for those 9 months I lived there. For the two gentlemen, who saw me crying at the airport lounge, when I was 22 and leaving home for good, and befriended me then and there, and asked about me for the next few months in my new home. For the beautiful people at church in Toronto, who came up to me and asked after my welfare as a newbie to the city and gave me their number to call. For the moms at the new school who became my friends, and their children became my son's buddies for always. For my childhood friends, who remained steadfastly "my people" through time and distance. For my Dubai "Chosen ones" who have become more family then family.

In sickness and health, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, we all need that loving network that holds you up when you cannot hold yourself up, to push you along when you have lost faith in yourself, to remind you that life is beautiful, to connect with you in your wonder, to show you that your garden is already in full bloom, to be there through good fortune and tragedy. 

I wrote the below in my yearbook profile my senior year of high school, and ahem cough cough, 30 years later I still believe it and stand by it.

My wish to all of you reading this is that, you too have that gang of forever friends that seen or unseen, sweeten your life and make it a better place to be.

Here is what I have learned: I am the person I am today for all those that have touched my life. Those that are still in it and those that may have just passed through. Every single one was meant to cross my path and make it smoother to tread. I am eternally grateful for all of you.