“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.”
~ Bernard Meltzer
I strongly believe that the above definition is the most appropriate to define real friends. I have many friends who fit that description and I list some of them in the order of length of association. And, let me assure you that I think the same way about them too.
The first one is a friend EG, who now lives in retirement in Mumbai who was a neighbour and my late younger brother’s class mate in Montessori School. He has been a friend now for the proverbial three score and ten years. I don’t think that he would have continued to be my friend for all these years if I had not been slightly cracked.
The next one is NV, who lives in Chennai who also has been my friend for about seventy years now and still thinks that I am cracked.
The next one QSA too, lives in Mumbai who has been a friend now for fifty five years. He knows that I am cracked but, does not make a big deal of it and simply accepts me as I am and continues to be a great friend.
One more, AH who now lives in laid back retirement in Goa has been a friend for near thirty five years and insists on verifying that I stay cracked everyday by telephone calls. Strangely enough, our friendship started with his coming to check up on me while I was recovering from a surgery in a hospital at the request of another mutual friend and now a days, the two of us are handling many health issues and our discussing those gives us moral support as well as other forms of support at need.
There were some more but, as is logical for someone who is aged well over the national average, they have left this world and must be waiting for me to join them to play golf together in the hereafter. One of them AHK, a neighbour, left just a few days ago after a prolonged illness.
There are many who live now in the same place as I do, Pune who too have accepted me as I am and are great sources of joy and moral support. That almost all of them are alumni from the same Business School adds to the bonding.
My fellow Friday 2 on 1 blogger Shackman has suggested this week’s topic. as Please go over to his blog to see what he has to say about this topic.
If we didn’t accept that people can be slightly cracked, we would never have any friends, as we’re all slightly cracked and nobody is 100 per cent sane. We all have mental health issues or peculiar opinions or strange personal habits or bad memories or extreme emotions. I accept all Jenny’s oddities and she accepts mine. Often it’s people’s oddities that makes them interesting. People who deny their quirks and pretend to be normal can be very dull.
In my view, cracked is normal!
I love being slightly cracked, always have been. Noted in schools for the same thing. Different drummer, down to the clothes and hair and footwear and socks.
I am attracted to other non-conformists, the critical thinkers, the activists.
Alas, my dear ones are vanishing into stardust. But I make new friends, many much younger than I, so I feel blessed. I think my crack-dom has a lot to do with this.
XO
WWW
That does not surprise me at all WWW.
Well! Kith and Kin can be Kracked as well! Look in your own basket!
But, of course. That goes without saying. And, indeed, why go elsewhere when you find the whole lot in-house?
Being ‘slightly cracked’ is an old phrase that I haven’t heard much since my parents left. It’s still applies to my whole family – I say proudly. I appear more cracked since my stroke, not physically, but from the standpoint of eccentricity. I feel impelled to live my life in a way that gives the most of me and makes me the happiest and most fulfilled. This can appear cracked to others. But as we know that we are going to ‘be the call or get the call’ in the not too distant future. So live life, i say. Albeit, differently than i would have imagined.
As I maintain Mother, Cracked is normal!
that is a very nice definition of friendship. I think my friends tolerate rather than appreciate my very many cracks!
As you do theirs Kylie.
It’s a good thing that we can accept our friends’ quirks – makes it more likely they’ll accept ours!
Indeed! Great quid pro quo.
A lot of my “old” real friends, I no longer see…they have moved away from the city, and most of our communication is via this gadget…but now that we can post pictures easily that often brings us closer together.
One of my “old” friends, just moved closer to me, although she didn’t live far away before, her life was tangled up in other aspects…I caught up with her again last week at a local cafe. And she is very supportive on my new health issues but she is still looking forward to me re-learning to ride a bicycle … there is a bike hub not far from here, but until I’m more evenly balanced it’s on hold…
Catherine de Seton recently posted..Snippet Journal
Wow! I hope that you will soon be cycling around all over town and writing blog posts about your adventures.
I am not saying I do this with friends, I don’t, however, I do bin cracked eggs – for good reason. As such the analogy falls flat for me. However, warts and all is fine with me. The only thing that perturbes me when a friend or other close to me lies. I don’t know what it is but when someone , and blatantly so, lies into my face something cracks in me. Luckily, not least for the liar, I am most forgiving. I don’t dwell on a failing. And yet, and yet and yet … Ever so subtly there will be a tiny shift – an innocence taken out of the original equation of trust.
U
Lying friends are a different matter altogether and I have one blog post in the pipeline.