This is a guest contribution from one of our readers who wanted to keep his identity a secret.
Walking down the road of life, we often meet people who leave away nothing but footprints on our heart. Even if we try, we can’t erase them. They are no special people, but they are very special at what they do. They don’t have any super healing powers, but they have that extraordinary gift of soothing our souls without even touching the wound. You know you can talk to them for hours and hours, without worrying about the tick-tock.
I had people entering and exiting the revolving door of my life pretty frequently. They were here until they chose to leave, cut loose or grow apart from me over time. Mostly people are like the supporting actors of a TV series, they are there till they need you (yup, there’s a dark side to every actor) and leave the moment you need them. There are many of these types of characters, all of them biting the dust for any number of reasons.
In an age of social networking drama and casual betrayal, people go from BFF’s’ to archenemies so often that it makes you wonder if they were really friends to begin with. When someone deceives you or breaks your trust, are they a loyal friend? Some may say yes, you can care about a person plenty but screw up one time in a very big way, thus breaking the bond. Others would beg to differ.
Before writing about this (in fact, WWWAAAYYY BBBEEFFFOOORREEE writing this) I met someone who had a misconstrued notion that best friendships are hard to find, and if you find them, they are usually nice and full of bright colors and witty comments with laugh tracks after each joke.
Just like what the power puff girls have in between them. Let’s face it, it’s all not true.
If things always appear to be just perfect, then take my word, below the surface they’re probably a mess. In reality, friendships last because they are gritty and blunt. They consist of honesty, sometimes brutal and sometime diplomacy, but honesty is the key. Most of the times, the ugly truth is not what we want to hear – as a matter of fact – it’s rarely what we were hoping for. But keeping it real is a part of friendship and appreciating the truth is the other piece of that puzzle. Friendship is a lot of things, but in a nutshell it’s as simple as being there and doing so in the most authentic and genuine fashion possible. It’s not a masquerade party where everyone’s invited.
Unlike many, not everyone have that one best, best friend – many people move up the ladder of life together, in the form of a tight knit group. But they have one thing in common – they were there for you in your highs and lows. They weren’t just present or around, they were there. That’s what sets them apart from the acquaintances, the good-weather “friends” and the masked culprits who were nowhere to be seen at your lowest point.
True friendships are complicated in the sense that we should set high standards for which we dedicate ourselves to and allow them to be close to us, but we should be careful as to not set Bollywood type standards. There’ll be no episode long disagreements with cheesy music queues and quick-fix chats.
It gets bumpy in real life, you have to know in advance and get ready to go through turbulence (I know you did). If you have a real friendship, those involved will deal with it and take that bad with the good. Best, best friends are all about enduring the awful and enjoying the awesome, it’s about laughing at those who jump ship every other week, snipping the cords as soon as they have a quarrel and playing with the phrase BFF, turning it into a valueless acronym as fast as they can blink.
I can say all this from my own personal experiences. The past 4-6 years of my life have taught me the simplest, yet the toughest lessons of life. I believe I’ll be able to walk the walk and talk the talk, because I was blessed with some of the most beautiful people around, out of whom, one does stand apart.
I originally wanted to write this as a letter about why you’re my best friend and why I would want to spend my life with you and decorate it with all the adorable anecdotes I could find, but I’m not going to do that because I think you already know why you’re my best friend. If you didn’t, then I guess we probably wouldn’t have become the kind of friends we did in the past years or so.
I don’t think whether you know this or not, but I would really like to thank you for being close to me even when we were on separate notes of life. Thank you for never giving up on our friendship, for never shrugging and being like “Sorry dude, things change, people change and times change” and drifting away vaguely because we’re victims of circumstance.
During the past two-three years, I think I can say this: Thank you for taking care of me and being there for me when no one else was or wanted to be there and leave on their will. I mean, everyone has friends that don’t want to get close; you don’t feel much comfortable with them and neither do they, they feel kind of weird when it comes to asking for help and like you have to clarify that you won’t ask for any kind of favor from them in return, but you’re not one of those.. You were and are there for everything, no bargaining or explanations needed.
Thank you for being a different friend than everyone else, different from the friends who are only there for the fun things. Thank you for always being fun even when we’re not having fun. And I really don’t have a clue as to how I can explain it to you, but I really mean that!
So, please don’t go on asking me about it.
Now, as I said, no one’s perfect, and I know I am not even near to being perfect (Thank GOD!). You didn’t know me too well, before now, but you believed in me when I was too weak and exhausted to believe in myself. Thank you for pushing me to go for something I didn’t wanted to go for, I still haven’t, but I respect what you were trying to do. Thanks a lot for repeating those “much talked about words” that don’t mean a thing in life, but sometimes, they end up meaning everything when someone who cares about you says them. Thank you for not judging me every time I did something really stupid, but also thanks for telling me I was an idiot and probably shouldn’t have done that stupid thing.
I don’t know why, but that moment actually brought a teeny tear to my eye. I guess it does feel great to know you’re looked after by a lot of people, and especially by the one you like. Thank you for always being honest.
It is confusing to see a person, so quiet and calm when all hell’s breaking loose near them, either that person is going to explode behind your back or speak about the situation in the most mature manner possible.
After knowing you more, I think the latter suits you best! Thank you for that!
Thank you for doing all the things a real best friend does or should have done (in my case); for listening to me while I spoke my heart out and sharing yours with me. Thank you for always knowing who I am and reminding me of that when I forget (I hope to see that coming from you, more often). Thank you for being genuinely concerned with the outcome of my life and always listening, even when you were tired (Hahahaha…like seriously, it’s awesome to talk)
Thank you for telling me the things no one wants to hear and sparing the crappy advice. I can’t think of many other people I’d actually take a bullet for.
And yeah, I know everyone makes these grand emotional claims in depressed quotes pictures against the lonely flower near the only lamppost, but the difference is, I’d actually do it for you!
P.S. Keep hopping like the bunny you are. 😉
