love thursday: lifelong friends
Lifelong friendship is everywhere, every day in Italy. A walk to virtually any piazza will reveal a scene similar to this:
Indeed, many of us expats in Italy lament about how difficult it is to break into an Italian’s close circle of friends. For many Italians, friends are made early on in life and not too many changes are made to the roster, so to speak, no matter how many years go by.
From the outside, this can be discouraging if you’re looking to form lifelong friendships with people who aren’t looking for the same thing. On the other hand, if you’re successful in cozying into that coveted spot, you know you have a special friendship.
But even if we never crack the code, all of us, expat or not, have our own lifelong friends that we know will support us, listen to our complaints, share our happiness, and, quite simply, accept us no matter what happens.
I’m not going to call out anyone here, but those of you out there who are my lifelong friends, know who you are. And I love and appreciate each one of you.
Thank you for enriching every day of my life even though I’m an ocean away (and even if you never comment on my blog).
And not to leave out my newest friends, those in cyberspace, thank you, too, for welcoming me and giving me a virtual home. I can already feel some lifelong friendships in the works.
Happy Love Thursday everyone!
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[tags]love thursday, friendship, lifelong friendship[/tags]
16 Beans of Wisdom to “love thursday: lifelong friends”
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
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I loved your links in this post. You wrapped up a tricky issue well. It is hard to find enduring friendship in a country that so values it, isn’t it?
I think the only friend I have that has known me since I was a kid is my sister. My husband has several friends that he has known for thirty years (he turns 35 this year) and they are still very close and they are partially why he is negative to moving to another country.
I have met some of the most amazing people I know on the internet, and to meet them in real life is incredible.
I don’t know where I’m going with this, just that your post really made me think. 🙂
These days for so many of us our closest friends are near only in spirit, and it is so hard not to be able to do spontaneous things together, like go for Sunday brunch, or meet for a cup of tea…
I have lived in Sweden, Canada, Holland and now in the UK, and I have made some incredible friendships with wonderful women over the years , and I miss them terribly.
Lovely post — here is to friends, both near and far, and new and old.
Good friends are so important – I have two very close friends that mean a lot to me. And the interesting thing is we have only be friends for the last 10years (for one) and 4years (for the other). And one is 11 years older than me and theother is 16years younger! Now one of them is moving to Singapore for a year…..
But i have also met some great ‘new’ friends via the internet in the past 18months – some in person but others who I have yet to meet. Some day….
i like the picture. All the odl men looking away from each other. Nothing to say after all these years….? just kidding! Vanesas
I hope I reach 70-something and still have the friends I have now 🙂 Although yeah, I can imagine it would be hard if you move to another country (just as I intend doing) to keep in close contact with the people who were childhood friends.
I don’t have many friends, but the few close ones that I do have, I cherish them like little sparkles of sunshine in my life.
I’m so glad to have found your bloggie (I think you found me first) because you are, to me, like a ray of sunshine in cyberspace.
I love heartwarming posts about friends. It is so frustrating for me sometimes to have my best firends in other states; I can’t imagine how hard it would be if they were in a different country! The best friendships really can weather anything though.
Great post!
i miss mine SO much. did you see that scene in the last episode of sex and the city where carrie is in paris and as she walks by a cafe she sees 4 girlfriends giggling over lunch?
i know the feeling…
I love your photo! In almost every culture you could take a picture of longtime friends gathering together, in a restaurant, in a plaza, at home, just happy to be together. Thanks for reminding us to cherish the friends we have.
Really special post.
My parents lived in the U.S. for decades and still have friends from their Caribbean childhood.
I try to remember this everytime I miss my closest friends (most of them live on the east coast).
Awwwww, loved the post!
And I find it neat that we both wrote about lifelong friends in our Love Thursday. 🙂
I love reading your blog and living vicariously through you in Italy! 🙂
What a great post. Love the picture.
There is really something special about friendship that last and last.
Happy LT
A wonderful post. You should be a writer.
Beautiful post! What is Love Thursdays? Cool….
The place near Lucca where I spent part of the last two summers was near a bar. There seemed to be a group from the neighborhood that would spend their days there just watching the cars go by (except during the world cup they watched that). It seemed an eerily closed society.
I agree that it is interesting to watch the older folks hang out in the small town squares. It is certainly different than the U.S.
Thanks for visiting my neck of the internet woods. See you soon.