If there are anything I treasured more than my family and my books, they are friends and their friendship.

Being a solitaire at heart, I have never been ” a friends’ person”. In my youth, I did not gang up or part of any “cool” group. I was more an…uhm…independent soul who did not identify her self with a group of people. A loner to be precised. Don’t get me wrong, I do make acquaintances, but friends? Probably it will take a while until I could call somebody a friend. And when I found one, usually he/she will be my friend for a very long time, if it is not for live time.

With this ”strange” perception and approach, I am fortunate to came across some good men and women that I have been holding dear in my heart. And if I am fortunate enough, I am developing new friendship and mitigating the risk of being lonely in my busy life.

Last night, I had dinner with several dear soul with character who I considered friends. Friends who had been (and will be) with me during our ups and down. As expected, it was full of laughter and jokes dinner which will wrinkle some conservative nose. And there were some conservative soul as well who did wrinkle their noses. But nobody got offended and everybody trust each other. We did not have to worry that our discussion and comment will be fallen to the wrong ears and perceived differently or analysed differently. Now that’s what I called friends. People who we can be our selves and feel secure to be our selves.

And if I am lucky, I will have another dinner with another bunch of friends on Thursday. I really look forward to it for they had shed some light into my life. Their present refreshed me. And the thought of meeting them had already make my self feel better.

And if any of you read this, I want to thank you for being my friend. Probably you will never know how I treasure your existence in my life, but I do. I hope that we can meet more, but as we all know, we all are busy with our lives and that’s fine. I will always hold you dear in my heart wherever you are.