Who means the most to me? When I honestly ask myself which person in my life means the most to me, I think of HenriJ.M. Nouwen’s lovely book “Out Of Solitude: Three Meditations in the Christian life.”

I have been writing about friendship a good deal lately and thinking about it.  I have struggled with friendship my whole life, I have had no friends or few friends, and have most often lost the friends I did have. Sometimes they ran from me, sometimes I ran from them.

For some years I thought I suffered from a kind of reactive attachment disorder, some damaged kids push away anyone who gets too close.

Intimacy is the greatest danger to them. It is still difficult for me.

But my therapists said no, it wasn’t that exactly. It was more a case of my not being available to other people because I was too busy trying to keep myself afloat.

Now, in a new phase of reflection, I see that I am making friendships, they are good and nourishing, and that I don’t need friendship in the way I always thought I did. My idea was full of drama and co-dependence, of rushing towards crisis. Good riddance to that.

As I get older, and have sought help, I’ve come to settle. I am more comfortable with myself, I do not live in fear, I am less need. Friendship is no longer caught up in the web of my past, it is what it is, it stands or falls on its own terms.

Unlike love, I don’t believe I must work hard to keep a friendship, a good friendship would be simple to keep, and natural.

Friendship is about trust, nourishment, empathy. And then, love.

What I have found to be true for me, this idea of who means the most to me – was beautifully put by Nouwen in his book of meditations: “…we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an  hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

I think that is the kind of person who means the most to me.