What a perfect way to spend Valentine’s Day.

I had dinner with a friend of mine, Michael. We scarfed exquisite green beans, flakey egg rolls, and General Tao’s chicken from Rainbow Chinese, drank a bottle (or ahem…two) of sparkling wine in front of a roaring fireplace and talked deeply for three hours. There was quite a bit of giggling and absurdity in there as well. Michael started the evening ranting his grammatical outrage against the singular ‘Valentine Day.’

“It’s Valentine’s Day. Get it right!” he growled.

Towards the end of the evening, we each wrote on a piece of paper all the things that might be blocking us from having bigger hearts, more open, more loving, more forgiving, more willing to see the best in others. (A common theme in the night’s conversation.) We took these list of self-blockages and silently burned them in the fireplace.

All of this was delightful.

But.

The trappings are not what made this evening great.

What really made the evening amazing is that Michael and I went through a huge conflict together in December. While the details are private, suffice to say it was really painful for both of us. There were points where I thought, “I don’t see how I can keep being friends with this guy.”

To get through the conflict, we were both patient, careful with our words while being completely and fiercely honest, and really felt empathy for each other’s position. It was harrowing. I was sad and scared (and ready) to lose the friendship of someone I highly esteem.

And yet with a little grace, and help from our own friends, we made it.

I’m really grateful for this friendship restored.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 10:40 pm and is filed under Gratitude. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.