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You just know
Jan 16, 2026
~ how unlikely friends become essential
Some friendships begin with the wrong first impression, and then become the ones that hold.
If a name just came to mind, that is your cue.
Yesterday I wrote about ideas that evaporate if you do not trap them. Today is about people who do not evaporate, even when the calendar and the noise try their best. We do not schedule our best friendships the way we schedule meetings. They arrive, they deepen, they survive gaps, and then one day you realize you miss a person.
Reader SB reminded me yesterday of a column I wrote on March 28, 2013.
Re-reading it landed strongly. It was written about friendship, obviously, but it focused on an old friend, JJ, one of the original 6 Musing readers.
JJ and I have not talked in a while.
JJ, this one is for you.
And for the rest of you: who flashed through your mind just now?
BEFRIEND OR NOT BE FRIEND
This column was previously published on Thursday, March 28, 2013
I’m off to a meeting this morning with JJ — a most unlikely friend I met more than 30 years ago. At that first meeting I was not impressed, didn’t think much of him and he spent no time getting to know me. We’ve been there for each other through some very difficult personal and professional difficulties…
