Friends

  I'm thinking about my friends again, my childhood and teen friends who I still personally fancy and want to keep in touch with, who themselves say that they have no better friend to talk to some times, yet who just never seem to keep in touch. We are all a great deal older, and we tend to try to solve matters on our own. And then busyness knocks out the remaining bit of possibility.
  Perhaps it comes also with being happily married and having found my place in life. Fate has a way of honoring some, while leaving others hanging. And while I am far from the most successful in the world in every sense, I can say that I am successful in finding happiness and a place of belonging. For the time being, my wife and I, and my kids, are happy. (Disclaimer: It's the truth, but I don't shove it in people's faces, because I know that while I have worked hard for it, happiness can be fleeting and extremely elusive)  For which reason I may not be the most approachable of people for my friends who are struggling. As one of them puts it, "It means the world to me to know that you seem happy and that you have found your place. I may never find mine, but I'd be ruthless to take from yours."
  And yet from time to time in a not so busy month of work I worry about them.