Friendships are like monsoons, they come and go, and are needed

Photo by Raychel Sanner on Unsplash.

Monsoons remind me of many people I have met along the different paths of life. They come for a season. They are memorable and needed. You know they will only be around for a while, and then what seems like forever since you last saw them, they come back and replenish you.

This week, on my way home from a funeral, I drove through a strong and nerve-racking monsoon storm. It was late at night along Highway 80 in no man’s land. There isn’t much for miles except for the occasional fence post and dirt roads that turn off into what used to be homesteads or RV parks.

The road is narrow. The rain was coming down hard. It was one of those sideways rains that changed directions on you. What little could be seen only came through flashes in the sky that lit up the beat-up road and the mountain landscape.

I was nervous, but it didn’t last long. It came and it went. It was heavy, it was loud, and once it was over, I realized how much it was welcome. What it left behind was fresh air, greener grounds, and a feeling of renewal.

I have friends like this week’s summer monsoon. They are something different when you need something different. They come and go, and after you feel like you had enough, or too much, they are gone. Then, sometime later, you feel like you want more.

One of those summer monsoon friends is named Jesse. I met him many years ago during one of my volunteer jobs. He would show up every weekend and give me a hard time. I was concentrating, doing my best to cook and to get ready for the lunch rush, and right behind me was Jesse, yapping away. He had a one-liner for everything and always needed to have the last word. Once I began to get his sense of humor, Jesse and I became good friends, even though sometimes he felt like a bit too much for me.

And then, suddenly, he would be gone for weeks, months at a time. Time would pass, and I wondered when Jesse would come back. It was during those periods that I began to realize my life was dryer without him, that what I needed was a season of Jesse to feel fulfilled.