The past couple of months have been a bit of a wreck for me because I have been without money. I worry a lot and I can proudly say that I have got a few gray hairs to prove the case for my "worrisome heart", to quote Melody Gardot. Since school let out, I have been frantically trying to make money so I can pay my rent when September 1st rolls around.
Enough about the negative...
After I got off work on Thursday, I was kind of in a funk and was feeling pretty left out on life and reflecting on my personal relationships. I am in no way knocking any of the friendships that I have, but this summer has been more about self reflection than about anything else. I do a lot of reading and analyzing to keep my mind busy and not on my financial woes. To get back on topic, I was feeling kind of down and just thinking about life. To be honest, I was scared about one of my friendships that I currently have. So, instead of sulking about it and adding more worry to an already completely pre-occupied mind, I wrote about it in my "journal", which is not really my journal, but has life reflections and thoughts and poetry and short stories and ideas (things of a random nature, but I keep it in order to keep everything together so if creativity strikes, I don't need to hunt for paper...and I have all creative writing in one place). In my reflection, I realized that there is a person who has stood by my side for years and I never realized that they were such a good friend. Her and I have known each other for years and were just friends and the more we hung out, I realized that she became a really good friend. We have had fights and arguements and we always manage to come back to each other with a stronger friendship and appreciation for what we do for each other.
I was feeling so great about this self discovery that I had to get together with her and tell her how I really felt. With my money troubles still in my pocket (or lack thereof, lol), we decided to keep it a really relaxing and calming Friday afternoon and went to the grocery store and found $0.50 bags of hamburger buns and made a trip to the lake in the center of Irvine and fed the ducks. We sat around and talked about what friendships really were all about because that's why I really wanted to get together in the first place. I had to get it off my chest that I really thought about us as friends and how we grew. I confessed to her that she was officially, in my heart, a best friend.
We shared a teary-eyed hug and said our newfound mantra: I will never give up on you. It's the culmination of confession and heartfelt love for each other and the desire for us to succeed in other personal relationships and endeavors, wherever our lives may lead us. This friendship has proven to me that I can have a loving relationship without sacrificing my own beliefs and I can have that while being completely truthful to myself and her without a filter. Now I know what a real friendship is supposed to be like. It's going through ups and downs and giving a little breathing room to come back and grow from the incident and not holding grudges. This is a grudge free friendship and I am happy and thankful to God for putting Christine in my life and transforming my self respect into something I deserve.
