Friends With Benefits

At some point I considered making this blog of mine anonymous.
Not just this post, but the entire blog.
But vanity prevailed, thank goodness. The same vanity which has me coming back each week just to see how many visitors have stumbled upon my writing, most by pure chance but certainly none by actually seeking out any writing of interest or quality content.

It is these stumblers that I address when I say that you have found the bunghole of the blogosphere right here.
I don't use that term 'Bunghole' lightly.
It has recently come to aptly describe my year, my most recent business venture, certain family relations and even friendships new and old.

I've finally closed chapters on friends and family that were open for far too long in the hope that I could re-write the endings. Sometimes the ending happened long before we even realized the story was over.
Some chapters were harder to close than others.
Words lingered, like the smell of camphor after death. But in those words I realized why closure was so important. Like waking up one morning and finding out that you've been adopted, or that your siblings are actually not your own blood and flesh. Or that your cat is actually a goldfish.
You linger and ponder and die.
Or you close the chapter, move on and live.
So I chose life.

Sometimes you have to close the chapter on business ventures too.
You bite the bullet, lift your socks and move on.
You pen the final chapter and acknowledge the lessons and experiences; and you're all the wiser for it. I've learned that I have an insane appetite for risk and adventure. That I have no fear of starting from the bottom. That I have an enormous amount of faith in myself and my abilities. And mostly I learned that I have the most amazing support structure in my wife and kids. They see me as some kind of Superhero who can never fail them, and so I don my Superhero costume each day to prove them right.
And each night I come home to tell them about my adventurous day and watch their eyes light up, and in that moment I feel like the guy who can beat Hulk or Superman.

In closing all these chapters, I've found an inner peace that's allowed me to appreciate the stories yet unwritten.
The friendships I have, both old and new.
People who just get me, and who I would take a bullet for. Not in the head, and not one made of lead either. Maybe a jelly-baby bullet. Or a cupcake bullet. But a bullet nonetheless.
The kind of friends I'd like to grow old with some day.
The kind who would have chapter upon chapter dedicated to them in my book of life.
The kind of friends who are in my inner circle.
The ones who's only benefit is making life worth living.

Here's to bunghole friends everywhere.
The kind who will pull you out of one, and if they can't, they'll get right in there with you and make it bearable.