Life Lesson on Friendship
Growing out of who you were means getting over those who did not value you enough to keep up with your changes. They took you for granted and left you on your own, pretending only to be there when it is convenient to do so. But you learned to survive. Maybe something good came out of the fact that you trusted people who let go when your problems started to burn their hands. Maybe something good came out of loving those who did not hold on. To you. To friendship.
And maybe you ought to be grateful for being left out, because you found other people who welcomed you in with all you are—cigarette on hand, laughing awfully loud, drunk as hell—and tolerated you with all your vices and lust and imperfections. These new people took care of you to the point where you yourself had to question where feminism is, because every time you go out for dinner, they made sure you were on the right side of the road and always walked you home. When you enter your room at night smelling of smoke and alcohol, you feel happy. You feel like the timid girl who restrained herself and kept to her grades were lightyears away when she was only a year before, when still repressed by those self-righteous enough to think she needed them.
You learned that friends are not those who kept a smiling face when you are around. You realized that friends are those who let you experience different things at different times at different places, but made sure you were on your track. Friends are not those who would invite you for dinner when they’re already eating to their full. Friends are those who ask you out randomly and who would even fetch you from home just to make sure you’ll come by.
You got over your longing for more people because you found out that most of them are just temporary. Once, you read how Seneca, a great philosopher, advised that a few great friendships trump a million acquaintances, and now you start to believe him, because at the end of the day, you know one thing for certain:
Friends are those who grow and go with you, not those who let you go.
