The Way I View “Friendship”

I had so much trouble figuring out how to do this month’s post! Friendship is such an important part of life, and it comes in so many different forms. There is the precious gift of family: My side is small and sweet and means the world to me, and Tom’s side large and kind and abundant with love. There are the friends who cross our paths seemingly at times of greatest need or by merely being in the same place at the same time, such as at work, which though fleeting in the grand scheme of life, still is fun and wonderful all on its own. There are friends we meet whom we know will be there forever, no matter how often we do or do not see them and regardless of whether circumstances change and we graduate, or our children grow up, or any other number of life changes happen. And in this age, there are even friends we meet online through a shared interest, whom we may or may not ever meet in person but with whom we can pour out our hearts in joy and sorrow in emails or forums. There is the amazing friendship I have with my daughter, that I still can’t believe is real some days because it is so perfect and delicate in balance between her being my child (and me the parent) but also her being one of my dearest and most cherished friends. And there are friends that fill in for family that is most often far away but who do so as lovingly and without reservation as a family would. I cherish ALL of these friendships in their uniqueness and in their common thread of helping to make life such a joy.

But the friendship I ultimately chose to focus on this month is the one I have with my husband, the man who has chosen to spend his entire life with me, through the wonderful times and also the less than wonderful ones. I feel so grateful to have him, and that he picked me. He makes me crazy at times (as I know I do him), but he also knows how to love me like no other. To him I feel eternally grateful, and eternally in love! And it seems especially appropriate to celebrate our friendship this month, as we celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary on the 21st!

Sooo… These images are pretty awful—they started out less than stellar in lighting, exposure, white balance, composition, you name it—and then were made even more awful by the fact that I scanned them with our home scanner. But I cherish them nonetheless. I realize too how caught up we get in the mundane aspects of life—school, work, raising a family, keeping up a household. But looking through old albums over the last couple of days to find images was so much fun, and made me remember once again what a wonderful life we’ve shared in the 24 (!!) years since we met.

So in a nutshell, here is our “friendship” to date:

Our honeymoon:

Our first meal (it was Taco Bell!) in our first (and very possibly only!) home:

Our second anniversary trip to Europe:

Our tenth anniversary:

Our little family now:

And this last one was taken by Emily for this post, to show us today (since I realized we are so rarely in shots alone together!):

The act of gathering my images for this month’s post reminded me, too, why I am so passionate about photography. Even these badly executed images are treasures to me, each and every one of them. They are tangible proof that we can hold in our hands of love, of family and friendships, of lives well lived, even of sorrow. Photography provides us with snippets of memories, moments large and small, that could easily otherwise be forgotten but that should not be forgotten. They give memories that can now be cherished, even if you go YEARS without even glancing at them. And that is something to celebrate!

Now please continue our circle, to see what the amazing Leah Cook came up with for “Friendship”!