Shades of Blue

A thoughtful friend on Twitter responded to one of my recent blog posts about true-blue friends with the following thought-provoking post:  "...how hard to know whether we have a true blue or a variant of another kind.  Is time the only litmus test...."  His comment made me think of the friends I have who are all shades of blue, representing a spectrum ranging from azure to royal to navy.  As I've thought about his post, I've come to believe that time does play an important role in determining the quality of a friendship, for time and familiarity certainly help establish a meaningful and lasting bond.  But some "new" friends can also be empathetic, faithful, responsive and true.  So, perhaps equal in importance to length of a friendship is the depth of that relationship that comes from a shared experience, something that transforms the individual and the friendship forever.