I have had many contacts with friends in my life lately recently, new and old. I guess it is nice to have new friends, especially if they are borzoi related. It is comforting to correspond with like minded people and share stories about these creatures we love so deeply. But then, there are people from other places in our lives, our pasts, people we knew when we were different people, people for whom feelings are more complicated, people who have sometime made us happy and other times made us very sad. That is how it is with friends, I believe. Even the best of them make mistakes and the consequences can be very painful. I don’t even know if I have the inner strength to share these stories. Perhaps I shall try. Just not now.
Many of my friends have let me down. But I, with my generous capacity for forgiveness, often times allow them to remain friends with me, perhaps after the passage of some time if I valued them. I hate the loss of relationships in my life and I fight to keep those that I have. Having no successful family life in either my family of origin or my subsequent marriages, my friends have filled those gaps in more ways than one. It seems lately I have encountered some significant friends, new and old. Tangentially, I have also received news of someone who has had a significant impact on my emotional life. Although not a friend, news of this person has come to me through several old friends and it has given me much to think about. I am hoping this news will prove to be ameliorating and cathartic, allowing me to close the book on a very long and painful chapter of my life. Not even the Blyss borzoi could protect me from the consequences of this person’s pain.