I’ve been thinking about friendship lately. I don’t have something definitively formulated out now. I’m just kind of thinking out loud with my keyboard. This has been on my mind a lot lately from when my roommate went back to see his family for Thanksgiving and I stayed here. The place was really empty. I managed just fine of course, but I was glad to see him back. Right now, he’s gone out to pick up some pizza.
It’s things like this that make you really think about friends. I think one of the most amazing things about them is that you choose them and they choose you. Friendship is mutual. You can say you are friends with someone, but if they do not say it in return, then you are not truly a friend with them.
Yet this relationship is entirely mutual. I find it amazing that I have a friend that I am now rooming with who lived in a totally different area, but yet we decided to transcend space as it were and come together and have this friendship consist of us being roommates. It’s really a new level of trust.
That’s also something new. We do have to trust each other more. The more a relationship grows, no matter what kind it is, the more trust is involved and the more must be given. We must trust each other to pay our half of the estate and take care of things when the other is away.
It also extends to other areas. I am hydrophobic as I’m sure I’ve said, while I believe my roommate at the pool is half-fish. I find more and more that I am probably getting closer to that point of facing my fears. What has been said by him to get me to that point? Absolutely nothing. It’s just been an attitude. That is the way it works. I see my friend and think more and more that this is something I can do too. Of course, it’ll take time, but other friends are confident it will happen.
I believe this is the amazing power of friendship. Slowly, I have seen myself becoming a more confident and capable person. I do not think I would be functioning as well as I am now if it wasn’t for having a good friend around. Of all the virtues, Aristotle and Aquinas both said that friendship was the one there was no golden mean for. You can never have enough.
And my friends know how I feel about them. I would do anything for them. They mean the world to me. I like that they don’t pressure me at all. They let me move at my own pace. They’re there when I need them, and I’m there when they need me. (I hope I am at least!) I want them to continue being with me when I celebrate my victories as I want to celebrate theirs. I hope to mourn with them in their sorrows as they mourn with me in mine.
There is just something incredible about being able to see one person and call them “Friend.”
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