Kindred

I believe I learned the idea of a kindred spirit from Anne of Green Gables. Since learning this I have grown to love dearly many people who have shown to be my kindred.

Kindred defined officially is a family member or a relative or kin. When adding spirit to it, that is when the word gains the more meaningful significance to me. Of course, family is kindred and share many ideas and beliefs and joys in common. But when you meet the spirit of someone else that connects to yours outside of any familial bond and sometimes outside of any relational ties that make sense, then a true kindred is met.

I have had the privilege to meet so many wonderful people in the past 10 years of life living away from home; during college, in Raleigh, at YCG, and now living in the outskirts of Greenville.

Some of these kindreds come and go and are enjoyed only for a season.

Some of them stick around for years.

And some get a little lost in the years of growing up, but then magically they come around again.

This week I reconnected with one of those kindreds. We may not even have known at the time we met we were kindred, but it is clear now. A friend from college, whom I had not spoken to in 5 years but kept up with enough via facebook, seemed to be looking down the same scope of life, so we decided it was time to catch up.

It was as if no time had passed. Except much time had passed. More time than we were actually near and in each other's lives regularly had passed. But we were still connected.

We separately came to similar stances on many things in life.

We have the same thoughts in regard to our chosen school for higher education and both wrote a strangely similar letter to them via a professor or alumni survey expressing our very similar thoughts.

We both see the world from a perspective of hope, but dire need.

We have different paths to get us where we both currently rest, but we seem to rest very similarly on many outlooks in life.

That is a kindred.

And that is why I love meeting those that are my kindred. The people that you can lose contact with for years, but still end up standing next to each other in beliefs. The people that you can see every day and still truly know that there is a deeper connection and that someday, if your lives drift apart, you can drift back together with ease. The people that look at you and know you without looking at you and wanting to put you in a certain mold. The people that may be so different from you others can't see why you are friends, but you are.

I am so very thankful and blessed to know and have known so many people that I would consider my kindred, whether they are currently walking with me through life or they have drifted away for a season.