Friends and Friendships

The concept of friends and friendships always change throughout our lives..

When we were babies, friends mostly mean the people we had around us when we were awake; parents, grandparents, siblings, nannies.. Friends made us laugh, gave us food when we were hungry and lulled us to sleep when we were tired.

When we were toddlers, friends meant the people we played with; shared their toys with us, and enjoyed the toys we shared with them.

As we entered pre-school, our friends were our classmates and other kids in the same year with us. We would do activities in groups and visit places together in outing days.

During school years, our friends were the ones we discussed school assignments with, talked about teachers, and shared thoughts or problems we had with our parents, and confided in about our crushes.

Once we started working, friends were the colleagues who often have lunch with us and could occassionally go into discussions about matters outside work.

Finally, when we have a family of our own, friends are the people we can call up to say 'hi' to every once in a while.. or other parents in our kids' school who we can talk about our kids and school events with..

Friends may come in different shapes and sizes, but they always make us happy just because of their presence. Even before they lend out an ear to listen to us, or a hand to reach out to us.

A lot of people would think that school friends are the ones they rememberred the for the longest time.. because most changes that we experience happened during school years.. but, it doesn't close the possibility that we come across best friends outside school years.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that whenever we remember that we need a friend, there is always someone who might need us to be a friend too; to listen and to reach out.

Sometimes it is hard to keep a close contact with all our friends all the time, so it is worth to remember that saying 'hi, how are you? haven't seen you for a long time' is always better than saying 'why should I care, when you haven't called for so long!"

Growing up makes me understand that life often requires me to focus on myself and let others follow at their own paces. This makes friends become smiling images on the back of my mind during my hard time, as being away from them saddens me and shaping me to be a stronger person at the same time.

Therefore, friends.. never give up on me, because I never give up on you.. I might come in and out of your lives every so often, not because I forget, but because I love you and don't want to lose you..

-27 February 2009-