Alexandra Bogdanovic's Blog: That's life... - Posts Tagged "relationships"

For some reason my friends are on my mind quite a bit these days. Perhaps it's because I haven't seen any of them for a while -- although that's hardly unusual.
Some of my closest friends live in other states. Some live nearby. But geography isn't the issue. All of us are busy.
Lately it seems we've all been extremely busy. Too busy to return phone calls. Too busy to return texts. Too caught up in the stress and frenetic pace of 21st century life to put our own issues aside.
It's not an indictment. I'm not upset. In fact I've never judged or based friendships solely on the amount of time people are willing to invest. I measure them against far more intrinsic values.
My dearest friends aren't the people I've known the longest or those that I hang out with most. They are the people who have been loyal through thick and thin. They've put up with the drama and they've never hesitated to give me a swift kick in the butt when I needed one most. They haven't asked me to trust them. They've just shown that I can.
There's a fierce, unspoken bond. I know they've always got my back. And I'll always have theirs.
My closest friends are an elite group. I can count them on one hand.
As I do, I remember something my father always said. He told me that you'll be lucky to have a few truly good friends in life.
I am definitely a lucky girl.
Until next time, "That's life..."

So, last Wednesday was my dad's birthday. It was also the nineteenth anniversary of his death.
I still miss him and I always will.
I still love him and I always will.
That's not to say we didn't have our share of issues. We had plenty. In fact there were times we drove each other crazy. There were times we almost came to blows.
What can I say? He had a wicked eastern European temper. So do I. In that respect I am definitely my father's daughter.
Looking back, I had plenty of reasons to be angry.
Daddy never put a hand on me. Words were his weapon of choice. He once told me he never wanted to have children, but he "accepted me" when I was born. I don't remember if I was nine or 10 when he told me that. All I know is that I was definitely too young to understand. In my mind, my father wished I had never been born. And he told me as much.
I held it against him for a long time. Those words fueled teenage rebellion and served as inspiration when I was old and smart enough to get the best of him -- and just about everyone else -- in verbal sparring matches.
But I had a choice in the last months of his life. I could hang on to all of that anger. Or I could let it go.
By that time he was all but bedridden, his feet ravaged by neglect and type II diabetes. It was clear that he was suffering and that he would suffer more as other complications threatened to set in.
So I went to him. And we talked. And we reached an understanding. At times it was an uneasy truce. But in the end, I'm glad we made peace.
And in the end, we all have choices.
Until next time, "That's life..."