Albert Camus once said, “Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” I like this quote for two reasons: 1- Albert Camus is a genius. 2- it’s brutally honest.
Remember when you were in elementary school and friendships were simple? I mean, all you really had to do was walk up to someone and ask them to be your best friend; these are the making of friendships.
I remember my first reality check with friendship. I was in the 6th grade and there was this girl, I’ll call her Emma. Emma played with all my best friends, but for some reason, she didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Wanting to understand this situation better, I sought help from my favorite philosopher, my dad. My dad had a knack for explaining the hard things to me. So, there we were sitting in the living room, when my dad had to explain to me, that not EVERYONE had to be my friend. Then he told me a story that stuck with me until this very moment.
He explained to me that if you can count on your fingers just ONE really good friend in your life, then you are lucky, because some people don’t even have that. He explained to me that my mom was his ONE really good friend, and he didn’t regret that at all.
There are some friends that come in to your life with purpose. You don’t know it right away, but you look back ten years and realize that you wouldn’t be the same person without their influence. There’s a soulful connection between you. You could go without speaking for months and pick up like you hadn’t skipped a beat. You could move to a whole new city, thinking you’d lose your friendship, yet, you get closer.
There are other friends that are fun. That may sound shallow, but so are those friendships. I don’t know how many friends that have come in and out of my life in a blink. You had that one really deep conversation with them, and once in a while you wonder if they still remember your existence.
In my college experience, I think it really boiled down to those friends that bettered you and those that wouldn’t let you bud. After experiencing the ups and downs of college friendships, I’ve realized that friendship no longer lies along the lines of black and white. There’s gray everywhere!
I had a friend once; we’ll call her Britta. Britta and I were really close friends near the end of high school. We liked the same music; we both appreciated arts and culture; we valued literature. These were the ties of our high school friendship. And at that point, I thought they were strong ties. After all, the arts have the potential for making a huge impact and creating soulful connection between two friends.
I graduated, went to college, worked, while Britta was still finishing up her last year of high school. With my now busy schedule, I still made sure to make time for our friendship. Apparently, this wasn’t quite enough. Why? Because Britta was so used to the type of friendship we had when walking the same halls of high school—-the type of friendship where you saw each other every day—-the type where you had free time most days.
As many of you know, after starting college and working, it is a lot harder to balance your friendships. Britta did not understand this because she was still in high school.
Now, I tell you this long story to say this, I’ve had friendships with almost the exact same scenario with other friends, and become even closer with them. Why? Well, I hate to use clichés, but “absence CAN make the heart grow fonder.” It doesn’t always. But it CAN. This is dependent on many things: your wish to keep that friendship, your understanding of individuality, and your love for that person. There’s much more I can add here, but for now, I think I’ve written as much as I can on the subject of friendship.
Just try to keep this in mind. Many writers try to define friendship, and to that I laugh. Friendship is a form of love, and love cannot be defined.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a try…
