Life has many ups and downs. We begin to learn this as small children, and it continues to be true for the remainder of our lives. Through life’s milestones, grievances, and celebratory moments, we can count on our friends, and our friends can count on us.
Friendships are the only relationships we choose to make, grow, and keep. We don’t choose our parents, our siblings, or even, to some extent, who we fall in love with and share our lives with. We don’t even choose our children.
But we do pick the people we keep close as friends.
This particular trait of friendship makes them so special. Someone chose you! There is a person or people out there who love you for no other reason than the simple truth: you are you.
Being yourself certainly gets easier as you age, and our friendships just run deeper in step with that truth. So, whenever your self-esteem is a little down, or your husband callously shuts down a conversation with you because he’s not interested in discussing tiles, or your sister seems to think you’re embarrassing, think of your friends. Your favorite people on the planet are obsessed with you.
It’s an amazing feeling to have people in your life with whom you love to laugh and would give anything to spend more time together. True friendship is with those who quickly rush to your side in a crisis and people who love you deeply, no matter your faults.
I was recently drowning in misery. My kids were sick, I was the sickest I have ever felt, and I was nearing thirty days of solo parenting. But then I thought of a conversation I had with a friend, and for no particular reason, I was smiling. Friends just make life a happier place.
