The Importance of Friendship

Growing into my adult self, I have begun to understand how truly important friendship is.  As life continues to throw me curveballs, it is becoming apparent that no life is ‘normal’.  Life, death and everything in between is unpredictable and many times, the highest highs and the lowest lows happen when we least expect them.  I have found myself depending more and more on my friends.  As we go through these experiences together, I have begun to see so clearly that the friendships we create and nurture are those relationships that we will continue when we no longer have our grandparents, parents, or others in our lives.  Friends are truly the family that we have the privilege of choosing.  

Growing up I had close friends.  Granted, when you are young, your friendships tend to stem from similar interests or being in the same classes.  When I was young I really struggled with friends.  I never really felt like I fit in and many times, I didn’t want to go to school because I felt like I would be rejected.  I remember in highschool, I would cry and beg my mom to pick me up early on pep rally days because I didn’t have anyone to sit with.  I still get really nervous that experiences like that will happen to me.  One way that I have tried to combat that is by trying to find other people who might feel the same way.  I try to be the friend that I wish I had.  There are many friendships from my childhood that I treasure and will for the rest of my life, but when I went to college, that was when friendships started to look different for me.  

When I went to college I was a musical theatre major, I joined a sorority, and I helped create a non-profit organization on campus.  I found myself spending a majority of my time with people who were the same major as me.  Not sure if it was just me being self conscious, but I found myself feeling a bit lost.  I felt like I couldn’t relate to the bright and colorful personalities that were surrounding me.  I so desperately wanted to fit in with the people who were supposed to ‘get me’ but I just felt like I didn’t.  My first day of junior year I made the difficult decision to change my major.  I went from loud, artistic, and outgoing students to classmates who were soft spoken, carefully meticulous, and thoughtful in all words spoken.  It was such a 180 degree turn for me.  While I still found myself struggling to connect with my classmates, I no longer felt like I had to be loud when I felt like I didn’t have anything to say.  This started a major transformative period for me.  

Once I changed my major, I became significantly more involved in my sorority.  I found myself surrounded by intelligent, driven women, with different goals, dreams, and personalities.  I finally felt like I had found my people.  I was able to invest so much of my heart into my sorority and into the relationships that I began to cultivate and care for.  It was such a beautiful and sweet time in my life.  

After graduating college, many of my friends went their separate directions, many to different states.  I found myself longing for many of my friends but I also began depending more and more on my friendships that were still in my community.  My best friend and I really became each other’s person once we had graduated college.  We depended on each other and spent a lot of our time sitting quietly, studying, reading, laughing, and dreaming of what the years ahead of us would look like.  I will always dream of her and remember her as one of the biggest parts of my life.  She changed me and will forever be a part of me.  

As life began to get harder and harder, 2 friendships became more consistent and almost necessary to me.  While I had always considered them to be friends, things changed when difficulty, sadness, and challenges that we were not yet ready to face knocked on our doors.  It was those experiences that made me realize, these people are the family that will continue to be a part of my life when I no longer have my family.  They are the people that I will come to with my troubles, my confessions, and my victories.  And I want and expect the same from them.  They are the people that I want to succeed in life more than anything and if I can help them achieve their goals and dreams in some way, I will be the first person there to help.  

In my years of friendship and personal development, I have discovered that I am a person who likes to have a smaller network of close friends.  It allows me to spend time with all of them without becoming too overwhelmed or stressed.  I feel like I am able to be a better and more attentive friend when I  keep my circle small and really invest in each individual rather than investing in the group as a whole.  I love my people more than anything and I wouldn’t change any of my friendships with them.  

Friends are the people that you get to go through similar life experiences with.  They are the people who can understand you better than you can understand yourself at times.  When you find those true friends, those good, true, and pure friendships, hold onto them tightly and don’t let them go.