Now & Since Then, You're Still My Best Friend



I finished my high school schooling this morning at ten thirty. Now four hours later, it still really hasn’t hit me. As I walked out of those high school doors for perhaps the thousandth time, it really didn’t carry any significance. I didn’t sigh in relief or jump for joy. It’s just a part in my life that’s over, a chapter that’s been read.

I’m sitting on my deck now, thinking back to the approximate 3800 days I’ve spent in Forestburg school and there’s sure a variation things to reflect on. The fourteen or fifteen teachers I’ve had through my thirteen years. All the binders, texbooks and looseleaf that were used. All the erasers, pencils and pens we lended and threw to each other. All the calculator batteries that were never juiced when you needed them.

But mainly there are the obvious fixtures, my friends.

Friend: –noun

1.  a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.

2.  a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter: friends of the Boston Symphony.

3. a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile: Who goes there? Friend or foe? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/friend

I like to think of myself as having numerous friends. But this last year has been eye opening to me. It has made me question what truly makes a friend. Perhaps the best insight I received was from my little sister, stating that “a friend is nice to you.”

That is something we seem to forget with age. It shouldn’t matter if you pick them up in the farm truck with gravel chips falling from the bumper or if you can lend them brand name clothes. Who cares if you’re the best player on the basketball team or if your family is a little more than the average crazy?

Your friends are going to change just like everything else does. But if you manage to keep even just one through your lifetime, you have accomplished a great feat. This kind of forever friendship is not perfect but it’s genuine, unlike any other. It’s the kind of fight-to-the-finish devotion, where even when they’re wrong, you want them to be right. You can’t imagine life without them and know that everything would be boring. If you have this, you might be one of the luckiest people on this Earth. I never would’ve made it this far without my best friend. Be sure to prize them, because they know you better than you know yourself much of the time, and that kind of deep rooted history can never be replaced.