Happiness is: uncomplicated friendship

 In Happiness

Swimming in the warm waters of the Aegean in the late afternoon sunshine, my friend and I were musing on our thirty year friendship. In those thirty years I have probably only seen her eight or nine times. Yes, we exchange Christmas cards, and the very occasional phone call, but that’s all, yet when we are together it’s as if we have never been apart.

We just slip back into our natural flow of female silliness. The fact we are of different nationalities and not fluent in either’s mother tongue adds rather than detracts from our conversation, for ours is what I shall call an ‘uncomplicated friendship’.

Time with her does not mean I come away worried that I have said the right thing, or dressed in something that has caused offence, or am not seen as on trend, attending, having or being seen with the latest gadget, gizmo or whatever. No, time with her can variously be quiet, noisy, or hilarious and outright FUN in a way that is unfettered and free from the mundane and everyday angst that is life for most people.

Because of our language difference we have learnt to pay exquisite attention to what we say. We listen fully to build understanding. We think consciously about the messages we give and receive and we laugh an awful lot!

We are fully present, enjoying our time together and we are comfortable enough to truly say what is in our hearts. We welcome others into our circle and if you wanted to join you would have to agree to accept our differences as we accept each other’s idiosyncrasies (she eats quark with ginger marmalade? I take vinegar on chips). We accept we are no longer young. You see even when you describe it, it’s well very…uncomplicated.

And in that desire for the uncomplicated that has taken over much of my life in recent years I find that I am consciously taking steps to de-clutter, to simplify, to let go of stuff, people and emotion that would have me forever bound to unhelpful relationships and the past. So far I am discovering that I feel energised and revitalised, and am ready to take on new challenges.

What would you do to build a more uncomplicated life?

 

 


Photo credit: Aegean Sea by Maurice07 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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