To The Friends Who Are More Like Family

When you are a child, you are told that heroes wear capes, possess superpowers, climb on walls, and are the ultimate protection. As you get older, you slowly come to the harsh realization that such characters will be absent when they’re needed. Entering adulthood we are taught to trust nobody but ourselves, a prescription written to cure the remaining accessibility to our hearts.

Yet, heroes surround us. They are the ones you call at 3am, when you feel broken, alone, and defeated. They are those who make sure you eat when you have failed to have a bite in days. The ones that stay up talking with you until the sun rises and the moon sets, while embracing the pieces you love the least.

When you are in their presence, you don’t feel a need to hide any aspect of who you are. They love the way your front tooth sticks out, and could care less about the size of bank account, or the model of your car. When work sucks, your significant other left you, you know you could always count on them to save you.

They urge you to do your best, even when they can see the gauntness of your thread. They understand every hidden cause of your joy, laughter, and make sure you your shattered pieces don’t get left untouched. They could be the ones you come home to, some you may have not seen in years, but every time you have an interaction your insecurities suddenly disappear.

Friendships are more than hanging out at bars, hosting friends’ giving’s, and winning every beer pong tournament together. It’s knowing the ugliest parts of someone, and still choosing to welcome completely. Its understanding and respecting each other’s past, and making a unstated promise to being a part of each other’s better future. It is more than defending them from others, it sometimes entails saving them from themselves.

They are the family we never had, but the family that we now hold forever. The vow which will never be defined by signatures on paper. There are 7.5 billion people in the world and somehow your paths crossed with the right amount of precision so you could choose each other. Connections like this don’t just happen, if you think about how many steps in the right direction it took for it to transpire.

Friendships are intentional, by something that far exceeds a cry for explanation. They’re the completing pieces to your puzzle, they are proof that miracles are true; they are your real first loves. Friends are the soul mates created just for you. There is really no true way of fighting it, that this is true love working at its finest.