Since the inception of Facebook, the notion of friends has changed slightly. I mean how does a person have 700+ friends? I’m not even sure I know that many people!
But as of late with some of the misfortune that has occurred in my life, I’ve realized the importance and significance of my real friends. No, not all 109 of them on Facebook. I’m talking about the less than baker’s dozen who have consistently been there for me during the rough and tough last 6-9 months.
Webster defines friend as: “one attached to another by affection”. Eh, vague.
Urban Dictionary defines friend as someone who:
a) it's okay to fart in front of.
b) you don't mind talking to on the bus for at least 20 minutes.
c) can borrow $5 and never has to pay it back.
d) you'll actually call up to do stuff.
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A little better, especially since d) is huge for me given my disdain for the phone.
Once I started to think about it, I realized my friends come in all shapes and sizes. They are different genders and ethnicities. If you put them in the same room, they wouldn’t agree on politics or religion or the best football team. But for whatever reason, their one commonality is calling me 'friend'.
And this weekend when I had to do one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, eight people reached out to me either in person, by phone, text or email to check in on my plight. And while I don’t want to belittle the other friends who would have been there for me had I shared what was going on or who wished me well before the weekend arrived, I feel a gratitude towards those eight which I can't even begin to articulate.
Because there are no words I could formulate to say thank you for being that extra special friend I needed this weekend, I went to my trusty quote collection and picked out a friendship quote befitting of each of them. Here they are in no particular order:
“A best friend can tell you things you don't want to tell yourself.”
–Frances Ward Weller
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one'.”
–C.S. Lewis
“A friend is a man who knows all about you, and still likes you.”
–Elbert Hubbard
“Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with a part of another: people are friends in spots.”
–George Santayana
“Old friends, like old wines, don't lose their flavor.”
–Jewish Proverb
“A friend is one before whom I can think aloud.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance.”
–Sir Rabindranath Tagore
“A girl only needs three things in her life: love to make her weak, alcohol to make her strong, and friends to pick her up when the first two make her hit the ground.”
–Unknown
This weekend I have felt very fortunate and this sums up how I feel in a nutshell:
“I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.”
–Walt Whitman
Hey Patti, nice article. Hope your week is going well. My favorite of the above quotes is the C.S. Lewis one. I think all of my great friendships have started with kind of eye-opening moments of "Oh, this person has something that makes me want to sit up and pay attention", something that jangles you out of your every day humdrum. I hope to be there with you through lots of good times ahead.
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