“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school.
But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” – Muhammad Ali
The Core Of Friendship
When you think about it, true friendship is one of the most meaningful and long-lasting relationships of your life.
One good friend is worth more than ten fake ones! And if you’re lucky, you’re stuck with that friend until you are here no longer.
What friendship is really all about is loyalty and commitment.
It’s a promise to stand by your friend through thick and thin. It’s holding their hand through all of their storms and wiping away their tears when life throws them a curveball.
Friendship means forging a bond so strong that nothing can break you apart.
It means knowing that there will be moments of anger, hidden grudges, and periods of not talking, but at the end of the day, when your best friend calls on you, you’re there in a heartbeat.
Nobody can really explain the peculiarity of a friendship, but one thing’s for sure: great friends make life that much more enjoyable.
Knowing that you have your small circle of close friends who would do anything for you is beneficial to your well-being and mental health.
Real friendship means you’ve got a rock and a partner through life. And guess what?
That’s all you could possibly wish for. Having your closest friends means having a support system through difficult times, who are without a doubt going to make you feel good again.
And yes, a lot of times it’s going to be beautiful, enjoyable, and full of secret-telling and over-sharing.
But the kind of friend who can listen to you talk about makeup and boys, and immediately afterwards about your deepest insecurities, is a friend to keep in good times and bad.
I’m sure we all have our own experiences where having a real friend helped you through a really dark period of life. I know I do.
And that particular period of my life is when I realized the unbelievable importance of having your loved ones around and how crucial it is to have that one best friend who will love you when you forget to love yourself.
That One Friend That Makes It All Worth It
I like to think that I have a nice little circle of friends that I can call real ones.
Through different stages of my life, I’ve encountered many people, of which some have become an irreplaceable part of my life.
Of all those people, there was always that one person (I call her my best friend, but she is honestly everything to me) that was just there through absolutely everything.
Every heartbreak, every failed exam, every shitty job, every drama with my family.
She was my constant through it all.
You know what I’m talking about? Do you have that one person that means the world to you and you couldn’t imagine functioning without them?
This best friend of mine is the most beautiful human being I have ever met, inside and out.
There isn’t anyone else who knows me the way she does. Of all the meaningful friendships in my life, she is the one that stands out.
When I was going through all kinds of crap in my life, she was the only one that I could rely on.
And honestly, if not for her, I don’t know where I’d be right now.
Do you know that feeling when you just want to cut contact from everyone?
Life gets just so fucked up and you can’t deal with talking to anyone and explaining it. It’s too painful.
You’d rather just be on a desert island and alone with your shitty thoughts.
That is what I was going through, and to be frank, I wasn’t being a really good friend.
But she never gave up on me. She never stopped loving me. She never got angry with me for never initiating conversation or texting her that I was okay.
She never had anything but complete understanding of all the shitty things that were happening and all she wanted was for me to know that I’ve got her!
And that made me realize how incredibly important and helpful it is to have a friend in the shittiest times of your life.
Not everyone sticks around when you’re difficult to love, but the real ones do.
And after having gone through absolutely everything with this amazing woman, I realized that taking a friend like that for granted is one of the worst things you could do in life.
If You Need A Friend, Be A Friend
Taking care of a friendship and nurturing it should be something that never leaves your mind. It’s so simple.
If you are in need of a friend, then simply be a friend!
Call your friends and ask them how they are. Shoot them a text out of the blue and let them know you’re thinking about them.
All those friendships that are now entering your mind while you’re reading this are the exact ones that you need to preserve and take care of.
We are all grownups here, we all know that constant contact is but a thing to long for.
Lives become so messy, everybody has jobs, families, kids, and as you grow older, you realize that having that 2-hour phone call with your best friend simply to catch up on everything is now a dream.
And it makes you sad for a second, but then you remember: It doesn’t really matter when the last time you two talked was.
It doesn’t even matter when you saw each other last.
This friend is somebody who gets that life is too complicated to expect those long chats over wine and weekly gatherings is unrealistic.
She knows you’re best friends for life and vice versa.
And no matter what happens, when you DO call, she’s going to answer it as joyfully as if you were in your early twenties all over again.
Friendship is so pure. You can go days, weeks, and months without much communication.
But when you meet up with those people that have made your life richer by being in it, there’s nothing but pure, genuine, all-encompassing love.
And in those moments you realize that having this bond trumps almost anything.
So be a friend, and you’ll have a friend. Be a shoulder to lean on and you’ll have it back.
Nobody expects you to be at their beck and call, but when you’re needed, don’t hesitate, just be there.
And one day, you’re going to realize that those people were the ones that made your life worth living.
It’s that college best friend you were so close with way back when, but life took you very far from each other.
You may be in different places in your life now, but in your heart, you’re right there with each other where it all started.
Yes, life takes you for a spin and for a moment there, we all lose sight of who we are and what we’re supposed to do.
But that’s okay. Your best friends are there to remind you of the person you’ve always been and give you a push so strong that you instantly remember why you have them around.
