I was sitting at my computer yesterday afternoon fretting over the flurry of emails I was receiving from my client. It was unending and I actually spent six hours answering questions. I felt as if I were being indicted for something. Not that the company was accusing me of anything, but I just felt I was under investigation.

Matilda came up to me, wrapper her arms around my neck and sobbed. Now, unless you are a parent, specifically a dad, you don’t realize that when your child hits seven she doesn’t normally wrap her arms around your neck and really hug you. Especially if you are a dad. In this scenario there are two possible things she’s looking for: permission or comfort.

In this case it was clearly comfort. She didn’t say anything; she just crumpled into my arms and cried quietly. Not her normal dramatic crying, but real sorrow.

Real, pained sorrow that came within a deep well insider her child’s heart. Her friends quietly told me that she and another girl had a fight and the other girl left.

No questions. No advice. I just held her and let her calm herself.

A child’s heart is so delicate. They puff themselves up and try to prove themselves as mini-adults. But, when things come crashing down around them, they can’t hold it together because they do not understand at all. Why did this happen? Why did the universe bite back?

It takes us so long to learn that things don’t always work out. But what does that really do to us? A few relationships burn us and we find out we should know better. So instead of being trusting and open we close ourselves off and become suspicious of others. We know they seem nice. But in their hearts lurks a horrible darkness that is bent upon destroying our lives.

Come on. We’ve all been there, there’s no denying that. But if you look at a child, before they’ve sucked up their parents’ fears and prejudice or they’ve caved to peer pressure to ostracize, they accept other kids. They seek them out.

Watch next time you’re in a closed situation with a young one. Another kid will enter and the two will circle each other like predators. They size one another up, and decide who is the dominant child. The leader approaches the other and says, “Do you want to see this truck?” And they are off. It wouldn’t matter if the kids looked different, smelled bad or had ten arms. In the moment they’d play together.

It’s when the concept of real friendship comes up that the pain arrives. Once a friend burns you, it makes it a little more difficult to jump into that next friendship. Those bastards.

It’s funny, though. Friendship, the one thing we all seek out and tell everyone is the most important thing is the first thing in our lives that makes us suspicious of other people.

Weird, huh?

Discuss