One year, 21 days

Yesterday was the Friendship Day. I spent the last 21 Friendship Days without even knowing that they were passing by. But yesterday I came to know and there couldn't have been a better time.
Friendship is something that we all cherish but few of us understand. We all want friends but we seldom know what we want in a friend. We all call somebody our best friend and we hardly ever stop to think what does that mean. And then there is love. How do u differentiate between love and friendship? Where does one stop and the other start?
Unfortunately, a Friendship Day doesn't help us in resolving any of these issues. But what it does is that it gives us a chance to stop and think about them. It gives us a day to celebrate one of the most wonderful relationships in the world.
I think that the best way to celebrate it is to spend a day alone, away from all the friends. Now this may seem like a odd way to celebrate a Friendship Day but the thing to realize is that the beauty is not always in details. At times it is in the bigger picture. We spend the whole year interacting with our friends, being close to them, we absorb the details, we come to know them better. And so this one day should be used to absorb the bigger picture, a day when the individual qualities/eccentricities of a person doesn't come in the picture. You will be surprised at the colorful picture that emerges this way.
I can tell you all this cause I have spent not a day but a whole year like this, being away from a lot of my friends. Being away physically and being away mentally. And the best part was that unlike most of them who went on with their lives, I had lots of time on my hands to actually think about this. It was not at all a pleasant experience but then God's gifts are seldom wrapped in gift paper. But at the end of the year, I am rather thankful. From thinking that I may be the best thing to have happened to my friends, I have come to appreciate the patience that they must be having to put up with me.
This goes out to all of my friends. Past few months have not been very good and if I have been rather untouched and have been doing okay, I owe it to everyone of ur words and hugs and wishes that came my way. I owe it to all those chat sessions and long calls when u listened to my useless whining. I owe it to everyone of u. I might as well call the last one year, a friendship year of my life.
A friendship year to make up for 21 lost friendship days. Doesn't sound too bad :)