To love is to be changed; A letter to my best friends.

Early this year, I found myself celebrating New Year’s with my friends over some takeout, card games, and giddy excitement for the anticipation of 2024. We’re quite the eclectic bunch; a supermassive group of 20-somethings from a network of university peers, mutual friends from high school, and all walks of life. I would often watch them having fun and a serene stillness would bloom in my chest, for I adore these people deep in my bones. I’m especially fond of my best friends in moments where the five of us would talk about everything and nothing at all. 

To tell you the truth, the concept of having best friends is foreign to me even as an adult. Most of my childhood and adolescence was spent waiting for the right people who’d understand me, and hold me close to their hearts. I was familiar with a sort of FOMO that lingered around me and followed me like a ghost. It’s one thing to have acquaintances and friends, but it's wholly disturbing to be amongst a crowd of people and realized too late that your friends made plans without you (this would be a pattern to repeat across many friendships). Over time, I began to resent the idea of emotional vulnerability, of the many years I spent chasing for any sort of sign that my friends valued me the way I had. The loneliness made my soul starve, and I was desperate for friendship.

Looking back, it hurts to remember how as a young adult I would lay in bed ripping my self-esteem apart; how I was convinced that there was something wrong with me. In struggling to find connections that were meaningful, safe, and validating, I grew to feel cynical and wore my heart on my sleeve. I thought, “Maybe I just wasn’t meant to have the campus experience I’ve seen in the movies… it was never a real life”.  I became complacent in loneliness, resigned to going through the motions of life in the absence of true friends by my side. It surely seemed better than engaging in the patterns that got me mixed up with the wrong crowd, so I was fine by it for a time.

The years went by.. Covid-19 struck the country, and like everyone else I became a recluse to my home, waiting for time to go by till it was safe enough to return to the outside world. I remained enrolled in HELP, repeating a handful (more like two) of subjects. When movement restrictions ease, I find myself returning to campus, only just then realizing how much I missed this place when I stare down at the patches of algae spanning across the brick steps near the bus stop. Something strange had happened to the world then, but it happened to me too. I began to hope for a warmer life and warmer friends, and I found so much more than that. 

I have not smiled this wide, or laughed this much in the presence of my newfound friendships; what began as a chance mashup of friends who knew each other through me became my group of five strange and eccentric personalities that play card games together, protect one another, and enjoy quality time effortlessly. In particular, one such best friend has stood out to me as a brother I do not share blood with but cherish closer than blood. I cannot even begin to express how amazing our companionship has been, and how I have learned to trust such an admirable, loyal, and steadfast friend like I’ve known him all my life. Anyone who’s ever gotten the chance to know him surely will understand what I mean. We’ve done fun things together and mundane things too; most of our fun is derived from conversation, 3 am snack runs, and our shared passions for music and internet humor. Being a part of his chosen family has given me the chance to be my truest, silliest self, and feel loved exactly for it.

Then comes along another person I met through some juniors… who initially could not stand my guts. It’s funny looking back at it now, how she initially thought I was warm yet a little unsettling in my determination to be friendly (I was coming on strong without a shadow of doubt); and how her attempts at avoiding me fueled my will to be friendly and burst into her life. Life had swept us up on our courses and served us very hard-to-swallow life lessons that had us quite literally begging for happenstance to lighten up. We reconnected at the tail end of 2023, learning about each other’s lives and formulating a second impression of each other. One thing led to another and we became best friends through our tendencies to be gentle, compassionate, and curious about one another. Our social circles have become rather overlapped by this time and everyone found our newfound closeness to be surprising beyond belief. My connection with her feels like a best friend I surely must have known in a life before this one; there is an ease to us that seems so familiar and well-lived. I feel so at home with her and her friendship has been nothing short of nourishing and peaceful.

What I love the most is when my best friends and I stay in to chat over a few takeout pizzas. We dim the lights, and gather around the dining table, and our friend gatherings always feel more like family gatherings without trying. It’s July now, and I’m still silently spectating my friends with sparkly eyes and a warmth that flushes my face. 

I have finally found my truest friendships.