I am one who values friends over family, largely because of my family. Many have better. I prefer the unauthenticatable quote, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

“Friends are God’s way of apologizing to us for our families”― Tennessee Williams

I receive much more love from my friends than my family. I know my mother loves me unconditionally but she is caught between me and my father, who is at best a covert narcissist, playing the victim his entire life and fooling almost everyone for most of his almost 86 years, I didn't see through him until my "awakening" in the spring of 2020, and at worst also the rare male borderline. He even fooled all the the therapists. One nationally renowned PhD even thought he has PTSD. He does not. I've written much about all that I don't need to go further into that here.

I would be lost without my friends. We know how to be there for each other. Yet, I have also taken advantage of some friendships and have and am making amends.

I wrote this poem about that and my friend Richard. https://medium.com/channspirations/richard-a1ee0e96c2f7 This is the SEO description I created for that poem: "Poem of tankas accepting responsibility for damaged friendship while forgiving myself as aware toxic parent traumatized me; healing by draining pain pockets."

I would be completely lost if Richard had not also forgiven me.

I highlighted your line Jodie about synchronicity. I wrote about the synchronicity nature of my friendship with Andrew here: https://medium.com/illumination/dizain-of-suicide-72bcde4dc8d8. That 17-minute read is my best read and engaged with piece. It covers how we became friends and his death by suicide and my conversation with his soul many years later that both absolved me of irrational guilt and saved me from my own depression a year after we spoke. Many months after that essay I wrote this short poem about my loss of Andrew:

"Andrew

Suicide took

Leaving loved ones grieving

All would have forgiven except

Yourself"

In the same piece I wrote this short poem about my loss of my friend Jason:

"Jason

Friend since frosh year

Loss has not yet made sense

The greater purpose yet to be

Revealed"

Jason would have been 56 this past March 6th. I honored him that day with this sonnet, https://marcus17043.medium.com/haiku-sonnet-for-my-friend-jason-c64fafec763e, which starts with this stanza, which relates to what the AAs said about our friends remain with us after death:

"Sad and happy tale

You send warmth into my chest

From behind the veil"

Jason was/is very special. My piece also includes a speech I had the honor of writing and speaking at a Baily House charity gala in 2014 where Jason received a posthumous award.

Lastly, I believe a few of my Medium friends are part of my soul group.

"Mind reads strangers’ texts

assigning words my own voice

Third-eye hears old friends’

distinctly familiar

yet no conscious memory"

That tanka is in my https://medium.com/channspirations/synchronicity-of-familiarity-across-the-diaspora-a640c7eccab5 the notes for which include: "I imagine that to affect each other’s past lifecycles and life lessons we had to spark matter into lives within roughly the same geographic community, and we had to physically meet to recognize the energy signatures of our kindred spirits and soulmates. In the internet age, our soul groups get to experience and share with each other multiple cultures and distinctly different topographies due to the advent of social media, of which Medium is such a platform. I have instantly felt like old friends with several people here on Medium though I have never laid eyes on them or heard their voices with my ears."