How is it that people come to be friends? What is that elusive process whereby complete strangers start caring for one another?
I have been blessed with some pretty amazing friends in my life, but despite my decades on this earth, the mechanics of friend-acquisition still elude me. We interact with strangers in our classes, we pass by them on the street, we see them at work. Somehow, some of them become our friends and some of them do not.
It can start with a simple invitation to a movie screening, extended and accepted. But one simple social outing cannot predict the course of a friendship. Ultimately, I think, it’s a convergence of compassion, selflessness, and luck that makes friendship in our lives possible.
This semester I started taking schools at a local Graduate School of Education and I had the privilege of meeting two wonderful people named Matt and Jen. They don’t know it but they have been beacons of light to me during a dark time in my life. To know that they are around to talk with, ask for help, or just hang around with has helped to sustain me this past semester.
I know they will do great things. They already have.
Update: Here’s me and Matt and Jen reading and sharing some poetry together: