Day Thirty Seven: Friends

I have very good friends.

I can’t take credit for this one. While I am proud of the fact that I have amazing friends, this is more to their credit than to mine. However, I thought that today being Christmas was a good day to point out just how happy I am and how proud I am of the amazing people in my life.

Once upon a time I thought I knew who my friends were and who would be friends with me until the end of days. That didn’t work out. People I thought were my friends became antagonistic and people I never dreamed I would spend copious amounts of time with would become my best friends. If you had told me in high school that Charles and I would go shopping together or that I would hop on a plane to see Tony graduate, I would have laughed at you. If you had told me that I would be moving in with a very loud, very exuberant brilliant soul of a girl who works in cosmetics and loves Lolita, I would have assumed you were high as a kite.

Some things stay the same. If you had told me my family would adopt Lindsay for Christmas again this year, I would have said “No duh.” Jazzy’s graduation party, no brainer. My sister’s 21^st? Yup. I like to think that I am as good at keeping friends as I am at making them. Once again this is more them than me. After all, they’re the ones that put up with me day after day.

I know that there are some people I have pushed away or who have pushed away from me. I miss them and I still love them, even though they’re far away, emotionally and physically. I know I should be the better person and reach out to them, but I’m tired and scared and just kind of over it. Which isn’t to say that if they talked to me I wouldn’t want to talk to them again; I just don’t know if I can be the initiator anymore. Maybe that makes me a bad person, or makes me a coward; but that makes them a bad person and a coward as well, so we’re even.

I love my family even though the drive me nuts, but my friends are really the people who keep me together. My parents aren’t good at the feelings thing. My friends are. Madison always knows when I’m tired and upset and Charles lets me be bitchy to him when I have no reason to be. Tony keeps me in line and reminds me of how to be a good person. Jazzy and Lindsay make me smile even when I should be sad.

Of course, my bestest best friend everest is Taylor. But he’s going to get his own blog one day.

Challenge to my Readers:

Hug your friends today. Holiday is all about family; we sometimes forget to give our friends some love too.