Tagged for happy thoughts...

C wearing her pink fluffy angel wings on the outside

I've been tagged. It's my first ever tagging... A blogging rite of passage I believe?

Claire has asked that I celebrate five days of h.a.p.p.y thoughts and I'm happy to play along. They might not be five consecutive posts but between now and the beginning of 2009, I'll certainly oblige. 

My happy thought this morning is brought on by a weekend visit, a caring email, a virtual journey shared, and the subsequent contemplation of my friends - C, E and M in particular, who provided these. Although they now all live far away (two on entirely different continents to me) and I don't have the opportunity to spend as much time in their company as I would like, they are always with me; they share my life, enriching it with their unwavering support and inspirational example even from afar. Incredible women all, albeit in very different ways.

• Women who are a touchstone to my heart.
  
• Women who stand by me even when I'm sometimes hard to reach.
  
• Women who don wings to dance in celebration of my life.
• Women who offer love and laughter as an antidote to hurt and tears.
  
• Women who bring warmth, colour and texture to my inner and outer world.
  

They are family. Family of the chosen rather than related kind. Special women who've known me a long time now but with whom I felt a kinship even after we'd just met. 

You know the feeling, don't you? When you encounter someone who you could share your profoundest dreams or fears with over a cup of tea, or stand in companionable silence with and still feel connected to. Someone who shares a thought, an insight, a smile perhaps, as if reflecting your own reaction almost exactly. Or whose difference offers what's lacking in you and completes the moment, completes you in the moment. Brings balance. 

Sometimes these people pass in and out of our lives quickly. Sometimes the moment lasts only as long as the train journey, the eye contact in a coffee shop, in silence, and then is over. Leaving us nevertheless richer for it. Touched. Sometimes, if we are lucky, it grows into something broader, wider, deeper - fuller. And lasts a lifetime. 

I think we feel it here in the blogosphere too. And although we might never meet in person, it's no less special a connection for it.

And I am thankful for it. I am enriched by it. And, for me, this is a happy thought.

I'm not going to tag anyone specifically, but if you'd like to play along, please consider yourself tagged...

Happy thought Monday to you!