Family, friends, foes and fears...

...now that's a mouthful, for sure!  But what am I wanting to say here?  Well, a few thoughts on them all.

I'm not really sure why this appeared, but it popped into my head a while ago and I have been mulling it over ever since.  It started having just returned from a trip to Italy with family (brothers, sister, etc.).  A great time, for sure, and while we are all very different, we are still very much the same. The differences on the surface are overshadowed by the underlying love and caring we all share for one another.  And this is true with all families, maybe(?), at least mine.  So my thoughts began with family, and then migrated to friends.

Now friends, or at least the many in my life that I call friends, are also people I might easily think of as family. So the natural connection from one to the other is seamless.  I also hope that my friends know how important they are to me, and like family, the closeness I feel makes it unnecessary to say so as it is (hopefully) evident in the relationships we have with one another. Family and friends seem to be the foundation of all relationships and teaches us the most about ourselves.

Now foes, that's the hard one.  I mean who wants to admit that they have enemies, or people they don't like, or don't like them?  But really now, does anyone know a person who is without a foe?... (well actually, I do).  And maybe, just maybe, they are more important to us than we realize...in some way?  After all, thinking of someone you do not care for might also provide us with an opportunity to look deeper into what it is we don't like about ourselves, or are missing altogether in someone else.  Or if another person does not care for us, similarly we might want to take note as to why they don't, and perhaps discover something about ourselves that might otherwise be overlooked, especially by the family and friends who easily cut us slack for almost anything we do or say.  Not sure, but trying to think of it in a constructive manner might allow foes to play an important role in helping us become the kind of person we want to be.

And lastly, fears...well, that touches them all.  Fear we might have for our family and friends, wishing the best yet seeing how life affects us all.  Sometimes it's not that easy, and while we relish the best days of our lives, being fully human requires that we also realize there are times when we struggle getting from one moment to the next.  But fear also touches our relationship with our foes.  Do we fear we may never reach them, or fear that they will never understand who we are? Or maybe fear we might become more like them, and less like the ones we value (i.e., family, friends).  Perhaps that's the greatest fear of all?

Maybe my ramblings here make no sense (in itself a fear), but the very idea of family, friends, foes and fear seem to play an important role in life, at least mine.  And in the end...all connected.  And honestly, after reflecting on the recent tragedies of the Oklahoma tornadoes, I think with family, friends foes and fears, it is only the foes that become irrelevant.