Your Touchstone

In the Tree House: Your Touchstone

By: Samantha Stroube Daviss

I realized as I have gotten older, I have become a lot more protective of myself. I don’t want to use the word guarded, but I have had a lot of happenings, experiences and opportunities that have come my way. Some good, some bad, and some, well just indifferent.

But in all my “experiences” I have learned a lot about myself, who I am, and the kind/quality of person I want around me. Now I am not one to place my “measuring stick” in someone else’s face, these are just my standards for those I want around me, need around me, and realize who I want around my family as well.

So therefore, I have figured out who my touchstones are. Now the dictionary defines a touchstone as the following:

touch·stone

noun

1. a test or criterion for the qualities of a thing.

2. a black siliceous stone formerly used to test the purity of gold and silver by the color of the streak produced on it by rubbing it with either metal.

Synonyms
1.  standard, measure, model, pattern.

My definition of a touchstone is not too far off. As I mentioned I do have a figurative measuring stick that I measure people in my life against. And I realize that various people are in your life for various purposes. There is not one person that can satisfy your every need. Even though my husband is ultimately my best friend—he is the one I curl up next to on our bed when I need to cry, or the person that brings me back down to reality when I want to rip someone’s head off, or helps me see a situation from a different view point.

But, then there is my best friend who understands that sometimes in life all you need is a huge glass of wine to make all your worries disappear [or seven and seven in her case], or that chocolate is part of a female’s food pyramid, or that even though I can change my own oil and tires…I really don’t want to.

So you see, people walk into your life for various reasons. Some stay forever, and some come and go while serving their purpose. Just because they go, doesn’t mean you are a bad person or failed at a relationship…it just means that they were your touchstone for a brief period of your life when you needed them.

But to me, my touchstone(s), are the people I can rely on to hold my hand when I need a hand, to pick me up when I have fallen, and to smile with me and for me when I am on top of the world; and that they know I will do the exact same for them.

One of my oldest and dearest friends is definitely one of my most solid touchstones. We met when we were 16 years old; we will be celebrating our 20^th anniversary [of friendship] in June. I can’t believe it. But we couldn’t be more different, yet we were cut from the same cloth. She is from Austria, has a career that travels her all around the United States (and world for that matter), and really has no desires to settle down and raise a family. And myself, I am just the opposite; my career is geared around my three children so I can be home for them, I travel when I am able to [with my family], and I am a Texan born and bred.

But when the two of us are together, or talking on the phone, it is a comedy of errors. We are like one of those jokes… “So this Texan and Austrian walk into a bar…” You get the idea. We are loud, obnoxious [because a loud Austrian accent and a booming Texas drawl are sounds that will resonate in your ears for a very long time], not very graceful, but we always have fun together.

And when it comes to matters of the heart, friendship and being there for one another…we would drop everything to support each other. In fact when I was going through an extremely rough patch in my life, she left her newly pronounced fiancé in New York and flew down to Corsicana, Texas to hold my hand.

Now in my book, that just raised the bar to the ultimate of touchstones. But like I say, I have a lot of touchstones in my life, this is just one friendship that has grow up, grown older, grown wiser, and grown better with age.

So it’s okay to have a lot of friends in your life, I love all of my friends, but there are a few in there that really raise the bar and make you understand and appreciate what your meaning of a touchstone is, and what everyone else has to live up to.