Friendship

   I just wanted to share a thought with everyone before I get back to working. I’ve been thinking about friendship lately. A lot of people define a friend in different ways. For some, a friend is just someone to talk to. For others, the true definition of a friend is someone who supports them through everything. Other people think that a true friend will tell them how things are in any situation no matter what they may think about it. Does any of that matter, though? I don’t believe so. To me, a friend is someone who will always be there. No, they won’t always tell you that you’re right in every situation, and no, they won’t always be the most supportive person in your life. They have things going on in their lives, after all. They can’t concretely be that person exclusively for you. They will always desire to have a large presence in your life and share secrets that they don’t share with many people. When you think of a good friend, you won’t help but smile and think of old times when neither of you were in your right mind. There’s another side of friendship, too. A true friend will be there for you when the metaphorical crap hits the fan. They won’t necessarily have the right words, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll do anything to make you feel better, but they will be right there with you in your situation. Friendship isn’t perfect, and we all fight, but if you have someone who is simply willing to experience all the good and all the bad with you, you’ve truly been blessed. We throw away friends too easily now. Maybe a friend hurt our feelings or maybe they don’t share a certain opinion that we do. In some cases, we even start to feel like we’re doing all the work in a friendship. That’s when we give up. We distance ourselves, and then it’s all gone. We’re strangers again. I’m not trying to bum anyone out, but I’ve just been thinking about different bridges that I’ve burned and people who have pushed me away for very small reasons. We don’t treasure what we have, and then it’s gone. I still remember being a child and having a best friend. I knew almost everything about my best friend. When we got older, things came between us. They were other friends, girls, and even opinions that don’t matter at all today. I moved on to another so called best friend. The process repeated. Sometimes I wish we could all go back to the way we were when we were children. We were so easy to forgive and start anew. Even a fist fight wasn’t enough for us to turn our backs on our friends. Things were simple. I know that nothing can be as simple as it was when we were kids, but I miss it, and I think that we over-complicate things as adults. We don’t make friends for many reasons, and we push people away because of things that are petty. Maybe most of all, we never see things from our friend’s point of view. 

   As most of you know, I write for a living, and I’ve met a lot of people while doing this who truly care about how successful I am. Some of them are extremely close to me, and others I’m just getting to know, but I’m not letting those people go. I need them, and for the first time in my life, I’m making the decision to let relationships be what they were when I was a little boy. Relationships are give and take. They’re simple, or at least they’re much simpler than most of us make them. So no more drama for me and no more worthless opinions that drive a wedge between me and the people I need in my life. Thanks to all the people who have supported me and especially to the people who are keeping me sane through all this. For the last six months, life has been stressful, and it’s been fun all at the same time. I don’t know where anything is going, but I’m interested to find out, and I know that no matter what happens, I’ll have a group of people there to enjoy the ride with me.