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Friends With You
“What a friend we have in time…gives us children, makes us wine….tells us what to take or leave behind…” (lyrics by John Denver).
The idea of writing about friendship has been knocking around my brain for a while now. Friends and friendships have always been very important to my life, and I credit the support of friends for much of my success. On Medium I have written about many of my friendships, including the one with my “work wife mentor” pictured above. How did fate land me in a position to have such a wonderful friend at a time in life when such a friend was crucial to moving on in my work and life?
I’ve often said that the two biggest teachers in life are Grief and Age. I would have to follow that with Friendship. Friends have taught me much in life, both good and bad. Yes, even bad friendships have left their mark as lessons. What is that old saying? “Friends serve a purpose even if it is to be a bad example!”
When I was in my thirties my whole life changed when I “came out” as a gay man. I was 38, a married father of three children. But I had lived my entire life in that dark closet of denial of who I was inside. I later found out that I was not alone in that timeline, as many other men like me who had been unable to live an authentic life often felt the constraints at about that age. Most of that is a story for another day. But at such a difficult time…
