To you

I can remember the summer after graduation.  I remember the times where a plan with friends would fall through, and I'd be a bit disappointed (or, at least until I'd go to sleep; I'd forget about it in the morning).  I remember my mom always asking why - my parents usually ask mid-day "are you doing something?" and I would answer "probably" - and I answer I don't know; she'd then say "you're going to university in a few months anyways, and you probably won't talk to these high school friends anymore."

It's funny to me that some people are shocked to know that the greatest friends I have in my life are the ones that I've known since my age was in the single digits (or in one case since grade eleven) and STILL talk to, see most, and ultimately love.  Extended family, hearsay comments from other people - all saying that it's an oddity that I'm still as good as friends with these people that I was back in the time where we'd see each other daily.

And I say to them: what's so strange?

I don't see how growing up and moving away (well, in everyone's cases but mine) should serve as a splinter to the quality of friendship between two [a group] of people.  I'm sure distance plays a factor in other friendships - I can see that maybe going to school across the country might make maintenance hard but even then, friendships can stay as strong as ever.  That being said, it doesn't even apply to me - my best friends all go to school probably about an hour (give or take) in all directions from the Burlington mothership (not to mention that four of us represent UofT).

Now, of course, I've made my own friends at school - otherwise I wouldn't be a functioning person.  But I wonder, Did (for example) my mother expect that new friends automatically equate to replacement friends?  I value the friends I've made on my own, and when I made these friends, I didn't do so to replace the others; nor are they "placeholders" - meaning that every friend I have I value as much as the other, regardless of how long I've know them.

I think the fact that I still have my same best friends is only a testament to the type of people that they are.  I've long thought that assigning measures of "effort" in a friendship is ludicrous - the fact that none of us need to put "effort" into talking to each other daily (or even sometimes, dare I say, weekly), I think, shows the level of friendship.  We're comfortable with each other, and we know that in x amount of weeks when we reassemble, it'll be as if we'd seen each other just the day before.  Initially, yes, friendship requires effort; by this point, when you love a person/people enough, effort isn't a necessity.  I may argue that friendship might thrive completely in the void of effort; instead, it thrives through being natural.

Point is, after all those words that circle themselves over and over (I have that tendency), I needed to say how much I love them.  (I would've put the word 'you' but that's broad, and then I'd look like a jerk if I had to put a disclaimer saying something like 'oh... not you' ... but then maybe I do love you, even if you don't fall under the specific group of people I'm referencing ... or maybe I simply don't like you at all.  You probably wouldn't like me... so then why are you reading this blog? ... I'll leave it at 'them')*  Now that we're older, we're all much wiser (mostly), and the memories we create are that much more memorable.  Almost in a stick-it to my mom, to my extended family, to anyone scratching their heads - I'm very sure that these are the same people that I'll be friends with in ten years.  In fact, I expect to make speeches at all of their weddings.

I hope this at least made them smile.  To you!


* the credibility of this blog post just plummeted.