" A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In life, some of your most important resources are relationships. These relationships often change as you transition into different phases of your life. For example, if you go to college, you are not as likely to spend more time with your parents, as most college students move out. One of the most magical relationships are the ones between friends. Friends are there to comfort you and give you things (could be anything from gifts to inspiration to advice). However, I don't need to tell you how awesome your friends are. You already knew that.
My friends are awesome, too. One of them is my oldest and dearest companion who schools me in guitar, one of them has a nickname on Thursdays and is the inspiration for me to blog, one of them is a personality magnet who you could exchange compliments all day with, hundreds of them are connected with me on facebook, and a couple are just random people who I don't even know. These people are so important to me, I am okay with using run-on sentences to describe them...
So, you have friends? Now, how do you keep them?
Long story short, you can't keep every friend you have ever met. Some move away, some grow apart from you, some just make a couple bad decisions in middle school and end up hating you, and sometimes you move away. It is very hard to keep in contact with everyone. Granted, some of us have facebook, but I imagine some people might even grow out of that. Scary, right? Sometimes, all you can do is make an effort to reconnect with someone whenever you can.
Tonight, I have had the pleasure of reconnecting with my oldest friend. He is still the cuddly hippie I remember him to be. He and I almost separated when we went to rival high schools, but we still found ways to hang out at the boy scout meetings we both went to. He is still my best friend ever, and my life would not be the same without him.
Another friend of mine is the reason you are reading this. His blog is the cooler, more epic predecessor to the one you see now. He is just a little younger than I am, but his maturity and humor far outmatch mine. Together, we often ponder meaningful life questions, like "When you hit the shut down button, are you commanding a computer to kill itself?" and "What is one pant?". We hang out, and then I immediately miss him very much. Here is his blog:
http://www.ecbproject.blogspot.com/
There is a transition that I will have to make, as I will be going off to college soon. In less than a month, I will not be living in the house I stayed in for more than a decade. This is hard for me, because I will not have the same foundational relationships as my primary ties to society. Instead, I will be surrounded by new friendly faces in a new house, with new role models and new mentors. Did I mention I have a hard time making new friends? Now that everything is about to change, I have a massive appreciation for the time I have been given to say goodbye, if only for a little while.
In closing, cherish the time you have with your friends, because they are the people with whom you can truly be yourself. I simply cannot stress enough how important it is to have loved ones to stick by you. Take it from me.
What I learned:
- Friends become more valuable when they are or will be no longer with you
- Friends are easy to make but much harder to keep
- Make the effort to reach out to someone, becuase you may be sad when they are gone
- Picture a day without communication to any of your loved ones. With that in mind, how important are friendships to you?
- Do you share secrets with your friends that you never share with anyone, even family?
- Would you please name one friend who you can trust with your life, and one friend who you would like to know more about? Give a brief description of both.
More people ought to read this. You seem to speak in a way that everyone can relate to. Maybe it's because you're a great writer. Maybe it's because you're a great person. (I'm leaning towards the latter.)
ReplyDeleteI'd also like to note that you're doing something I've always considered writing about (but never have, as I also have my crippling laziness to consider :P ). That is, you're asking people to examine what many accept as a fact of life. Looking at the simplest things can often lead to shocking revelations, like "Holy shit, my friends are awesome!" or "Oh my god, it *is* Lupus!"
I digress. To answer your questions:
1. Having sort of lived that (my brief excursion to Chatham comes to mind), I can say they're the most important thing in the world. Even if you're an excessively materialistic person, and you take joy in buying and driving supercars, there's a reason that they all come with a seat for your friend(s).
2. Yupp. Though in fairness, I'm a pretty open guy, so there aren't that many of those.
3. I have a few. One is a certain blogger friend of mine, who is going off to college soon, which depresses me. I'll miss him and his off-color brand of philosophical discussions more than he might imagine. Another is a bearlike hippy, who the first friend might be acquainted with.
I'm always happy to learn about anyone and everyone, so I'm going to cop out of that one.
Good post sir. Oh, and thanks, you're too kind.