The Only Way to Have a Friend, is to be One - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I haven't had a chance to write here for a while.  Things have been insanely busy as usual.  Lots of things are happening and a few big changes are in the mix.  My fiance is now working every weekend which is going to take some getting used to.  This weekend alone has given me a lot of thinking time and it's definitely going to be a fairly hard adjustment, but that's life - money makes the world go around unfortunately, especially when we have a wedding coming up in 5 and a half months.  

I'm feeling quite pensive at the moment, listening to some new music and spending the day alone seems to do that. Yesterday I caught up with a few friends which was really nice, and truly made me realise how lucky I am to have them in my life.  It's funny how much friendship changes when you leave school.  In fact it's not necessarily the friendships that change, but the people that do, which then consequently impacts on the friendships.  I was lucky enough to have a tight-knit group of friends through school.  All of us extremely different people with extremely different backgrounds, but somehow it just.. worked.  Most of us still keep in contact which is really lovely seeing as we are all doing such varied things with our lives now.  One of us moved to Melbourne once school finished - my "BFF" Miriam.  This was an insanely scary thing when it happened.  Both of us had experienced friends moving away in the past and only keeping in contact for a short time before the friendship merely fell away.  This fear was definitely in my mind.  We met in grade 8 when Mim moved from Indonesia where her family had been stationed for the past 8 years and we didn't really like each other much to start with.  There were a few contributing factors but somehow as time passed and we spent more time together, we forged a strong friendship and ended up seeing each other constantly.  We worked together, went to school together, travelled on the same bus together, went on holidays together and stayed at each others houses most of the time through school.  The greatest thing about our friendship though is that even though now we rarely see each other, when we do, it feels like no time has passed and we were just hanging out yesterday.  As cliche as that sounds, it really is the truth. We talk on the phone a lot and are always in touch, and we are just as close as ever, even though we have lived in different states for almost 4 years.  I really treasure that about our friendship and I know that no matter where I am in life, I will always have Mim, even if she ends up being on the opposite side of the world to me.    

I am lucky enough to have had another best friend throughout most of my life.
When I was seven years old, a family moved up the road from our home, and their youngest daughter, 9 year old Samantha and I became practically inseparable immediately.  There have been patches throughout our lives where we haven't been in constant contact, but we have always known that one would be there for the other without a doubt.  Sammy is like a sister to me.  We used to fight with the best of them but it never lasted long. We have always had the same taste in music, the same interests, the same love of food and we used to write stories and songs and make up the most amazing games.  We had a pretty incredible childhood.  Now that we are grown up, we are closer than ever.  We both lead incredibly different lives and have whole new sets of problems to analyse and discuss at length,  but if a day goes by where we haven't at least spoken, something just doesn't feel right.  She really is like a  part of my family and she knows me better than almost everyone.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have such a solid friendship base.  Having people who are there for me without a doubt is so incredibly comforting and I know that not everyone is as fortunate as I am.  Having friends who have come to feel like family is something that I am truly grateful for and never take for granted, as there is nothing worse than loneliness and feeling that there is nobody who can help you get through the dark times.  Sometimes it's not the words that matter when you need a friend, but just the knowledge that if you need them, they will do everything in their power to make you feel better.  Friendship isn't just about the happy times, the times when everything is great and you can go out for dinner and talk and laugh.  It's about those times when things are hard, you feel lost and don't want to be judged and don't want to be questioned.  It's the people who will let you be who you really are - they're the ones who you need to hold on to.  Sometimes I think it is too easy to get mad with someone and just wipe them from your life without making the effort to resolve things.  Grudges poison lives and make you bitter and negative.  Nobody is perfect, including your friends and including you.  Mistakes are a daily occurrence and if someone really means something to you, you will fight for them even if that means fighting with them until things can be sorted.  But don't give up on your friends.  They are the lights of your life and will keep you going when it seems that nothing else can.