What Friendship is All About
Updated: Sep 7, 2020
FRIENDS became popular in the early 90’s but I only got to watch all the complete episodes last year on Netflix (yes, as I was saying, thank God for Netflix!). I was supposed to write something about my reflection on this show after I finished watching it, but I got so determined being a sloth and I ended up having not written anything at all for almost a year.
This show really depicts how friendship varies in a lot of ways. That even though with the characters’ bizarre personalities, they have one thing in common, their love for each other. That the most important thing for them is their friendship and they intend not to break it.
As I was thinking on what to write for my blog this week, I pondered and reflected on how friendships are created in our lives.
Friendship is always one common factor in someone’s life. We start having friends as early as pre-school days, meeting innocent and timid eyes the same as ours. Then it leads to sharing toys, pencils and food, doing activities and going back home together. And even with our hearts so young then, we know that having a friend makes us happy.
As we grow up, although some friends we’ve met before remain friends, some of them become strangers again. But we meet new ones that we become very close to, making our lives more bearable until we graduate from high school.
Then we part ways to go to college but this time, we keep in touch and see each other during school breaks and holidays. We meet new friends again, so our book of friendship has been added with memories of friends and people which make it more fun and easier.
Then we graduate from college and go to the real world where everything becomes complicated and stressful but still, our friends most of the time save the day. And of course, we meet new ones again and they become a part of our lives.
And as the world is changing, we are grateful for the internet for reconnecting us with old friends and connecting us with new random people. We reconnect with classmates, former bosses, former colleagues, college teachers and even our neighbors before. Surprisingly, we start to build a strong friendship with them.
What I’m trying to say is that wherever we go and whatever phase in our lives we are in, we are bound to create friendship with a total stranger along the way. Some of them are unexpected. Although some of them are just fleeting and just become acquaintances, most of them really stay and become good friends. Some of them even become the love of our lives, too.
My mother once asked me before why I had a lot of friends. She told me that one or two was just enough for her. But growing up, I saw her being surrounded with people that she cared about, people that she considered friends. I think when she was younger, being alone and trying to figure out what she wanted to do in life was her most important concern and she didn’t want any distraction.
Having friends around is like having a second family. Everything’s easy. Life has become more worthwhile. And admit it, our friends really make a difference in our lives. We can laugh with them, cry with them, grieve with them. We find comfort in them.
But no friendship is perfect. Most of the time, our friendship is tested. As much as we want everything to be all right, friendship also takes a toll on us. Along the way, we fight. We argue. We disagree on things. We get betrayed. We get abandoned. It’s because we have different personalities, beliefs and outlook in life. We are bound to have misunderstandings along the way.
Many years ago, as I was having an issue with my relationship, I was also having a fallout with a very good friend. It was really a burden for me since I was on the verge of losing a loved one and a friend at the same time. But at the end of the day, I made up with my friend though I lost that someone a few years later.
It always happens to any normal friendship. We have our own share of frustrations, disappointments and heartaches. But as always, at the end of the day we kiss and make up, forgive each other and put all the past behind us.
But no matter how hard we try to let our friends stay, some of them really let go of our friendship with them. A friend recently let go of our friendship for some personal reasons. Well, life has to go on even though it’s painful moving on. It’s like hearing Barry Allen from The Flash saying, “Not every friendship is meant to last a lifetime. What does last forever is the pain when that person is gone.”
So, I lost one. But to those who stayed, I’m forever grateful for the friendship. I’ll always be here for you. I’ll always be your friend. This I promise you.
