Not Glass-Threads or Frost-Work...

Dear Girls,
     Prepare yourselves for a ramble. :)
I have been thinking recently on the various kinds of friendships. I have many friends who I am very fond of, and several who I have termed "dear friends". These are the ones that I can pour my heart out to, who are such kindred spirits that I feel they sometimes know me better than I know myself.
What is it that makes such friends? I cannot quite say. I seem to have a homing instinct for kindred spirits--I will see a person and immediately know that she and I would be good chums, given the chance. And sometimes I am given the chance, as was the case with one of my dearest friends now. A real "soul-sister", if you will excuse a cliche. :)
But again, what is it that makes a friend? Certainly it is not only a person who enjoys the same things as you. I know many girls who I am not on intimate terms with who have similar interests as me. I think that friendship and companionship are two different things. There are many people I could happily be friends with, but there are fewer that I could choose as companions--people to live with day in and day out.

I have come to realize that, contrary to what I has thought for a long time, the best companions are not always those that are most like you. In beliefs, of course, it is important that your intimate friends and equally yoked with you, but in all other categories (situation, personality, likes, dislikes) it can be extremely beneficial to have your dearest friends be quite different than you. In the same way that two dull objects, but brushing and colliding with one another may grow to be sharp in time, so two friends, clashing in amiable difference, may become all the stronger for those collisions.
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another," Solomon said. And I have found it to be so. You see, it is pleasant to have a friend, a walking companion if you will, who agrees with you on every point, can share the same sensations over every view, every situation, every book and film and music you hear. But after a time such things can loose their luster if not coupled with a degree of originality. After all, what is it we seek in a friendship? Isn't it--to a certain point--to get outside of ourselves?
I have found it to be gloriously refreshing to make an observation on a point and see a friend smile and frown both, and say, "Really? I don't think so--" and then off they go making an indecently brilliant remark that would never have crossed my mind in ten years. Such friends are some of the best kinds, I think. After all, if we haven't a particular way of thinking (in my case, I am not exactly sensible or logical) mustn't we be taught? It's presumptuous and vain to think that we could happen upon all discoveries on our own. Sometimes we need to get a new perspective, a sparkling vision other than our own, and I bless the buttons of all my friends who provide that for me.
Of course I have some "dear friends" who are so much like me, it's ridiculous, and I treasure them as much as my gunpowder-girls. I just think that challenging, marveling friendships are precious. Please girls, never assume that because someone is bold and you are shy, or someone is quiet and you and merry and blithe, that you are incompatible--you might be missing out on a huge blessing!
In closing, I find that no words fit my thoughts any better than Emerson's. Therefore I will be quiet and let him speak:

"I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with the roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know."