Love my Friends

I have been having a lot of internal conflict lately. It is a long story; one I am not willing to get into now. Without a lot of explanation it is about my miscarriage and the overwhelming urge I have been having this last month about using my experience. I don’t know why, how, or what, but over the last month I keep thinking about it and it is weighing very heavy on my heart. I keep trying to push it to the back of my head, but every time I do something happens and there it is again. I hear a song, someone says something to me, etc.

One thing that was a huge part of my experience was my relationships with people. My relationship with everyone I knew changed. I pushed away every friend I had. I didn’t want to be loved because I didn’t feel love. Part of my healing process was an evaluation of friendship. So it is no surprise to me that with this so fresh on my mind once again so is the issue of friendship.

I find the friendship relationship so interesting. I have a very outgoing personality. I make friends pretty easily. I have dozens of “friends”. I could name at least 20 friends I could invite to go have coffee with me right now. We would have a great time and have great conversation. However, I often times find myself feeling very alone. Seems strange, right?

I have been really questioning who of those 20 or so friends are actually friends. Who actually cares about me? Who can I actually count on? What a difference there is in face value friendships and true friendships. I just don’t think we tell each other often enough how much our friendships mean to us.

This past month I have had three friends show me what my friendship means to them. I don’t think they even know how much their small act meant. One friend reconfirmed what I have always known, but needed to hear. Over the course of the last five years we have gotten busy in our daily lives and we rarely ever talk and I haven’t seen her in almost a year. Yet, she reminded me that no matter what I need she would drop everything for me and that she loves me.

Another friend, whom I absolutely adore, did drop everything and let me come to her house and cry on her couch for hours about the most ridiculous thing. She didn’t treat me like I was crazy (which at the time I was a crazy emotional mess), she didn’t judge me afterwards and she gave me exactly what I needed. She listened and made me feel loved.

My third example is probably the simplest act of showing friendship, but one that made me so happy. I have a friend that I met several years ago at church. She and I hit it off fairly quickly. She is outgoing, fun, independent and every bit of the strong-willed person that I am. We talked every day and I was at her house as much as I was at mine. We had a fun friendship and everything went great until life got in the way. We got busy and allowed lots of things big and small to get in the middle of our relationship. Several months passed and we got to where we barely talked. Recently I got the opportunity to spend some time with her. We had a blast, but that is not what meant so much to me. The time I got to spend with her was so important to me because we picked up right where we left off. It showed me that no matter how many months had passed, we are friends and nothing else matters.

I am not going to lie, I wrote this blog post for the same reason I write most of my blog post-to process my own thoughts. I use my blog as my own personal dairy a lot. Probably more than I should. However, I am actually posting this post(not just saving it in my drafts like the thousands of others that I write and have enough sense not to post) because I want something from you. I want you to think of a way to show your friends how much they mean to you. I think we are all so good to let people know how much the mean to us when things are tough, but we don’t take the time to let people know what they mean to us on a daily basis. You really never know what tomorrow might bring-so do it today.

Complete personal note: Melissa Basham you know this blog post is so not for you! You are the sweetest most caring person I have ever met. You always take the time to show people what they mean to you and I feel so blessed to have you as a friend! I look up to you and wish I was half as thoughtful as you are!