My friend W gently corrected me tonight on just how long we have been friends. I had been counting from when I was 17. She told me that I was 15 when we met; there were times she gave me rides home from school. I do not remember a single one. In fact, I remember very, very little of those 25 years of her friendship.

I know how that makes me feel. I wonder what it is like for her...to hold memories of our friendship that are nonexistent to me...

Something that I savor about W is that sometimes when we are talking, she finishes my sentences. But she does not merely guess/know the words that I am trying to say. Instead, she takes the ephemeral thought I am trying to convey and crystallizes it into a clear concept of understanding. She takes the bits and pieces and puts them together for me in such a way that takes me even further along the path than I had intended, that I had seen myself.

This lovely aspect stems not merely from our long association, but also from her keen intellect. I could wish she were more intellectually challenged in her daily life so that she might better realize the possibilities that lie before her, yet her basic work in counseling for troubled youth and their families changes lives.

I want the world for her. She rebuilds the world for others. Which is the greater path? Is there a way that she might travel both...her reality and my dreams?