Friends or Family?

Do you know those moments that people say we are going to remember forever? Well I have plenty of them but the ones I am going to share are the ones that I know 100% that I will remember forever because they were made with friends that love and care about each other. That is what this blog post is going to be all about; Friends helping friends.

You have most likely heard before entering high school that your friend groups do not last in high school and you are lucky if you stay friends in high school, well that was true for me.  I entered high school with a big group of friends and thought we would be together throughout high school and now that group is much smaller and about two or three closest friends that are basically my family now.  A true friend is someone who you know will be there for you no matter what and I consider that family. They are the ones who will pick you up when you are down or laugh at you first, but will eventually pick you up after they take pictures and videos of you and tell the whole wide world that you are a cultz, but you are their cultz.

I thought the friends I had were always going to be there for life but I was wrong. During freshman year, some stuff happened and I do not feel like getting into it, and I was left with friends, but I did not feel like there was one person I could really talk to until I got to know Rachel Lovell better. Ever since that moment, we have been like sisters to each other.  We helped each other with rides to school, like when I had surgery to get rid of a ganglion cyst in my wrist and could not drive. Or this year when I got in a car accident and did not have car to drive, or when I gave her rides because her car is basically crap and needs to get fixed all the time. We have so much care for the other one that when I got in that accident and was at the hospital, she was about to call out of work just to be there when I needed her.  I know that if I need her in the middle of the night she would be there, and I would be there for her too, no matter what time it is or what either of us are doing. Our families even consider us their family, for example; when I go over to Rachel’s house, I just walk right in and say “Hello, I am home”, and her parents do not care they just say hi and joke with me. When she comes over to my house, my mom says, “My favorite daughter is finally here!” and just gives me a sassy look, even with the texts she does that, but we know she is just joking. I am actually the favorite daughter. Rachel also takes all my food and drinks, hogs all the covers and puts her cold feet on me during the night. I still do not care, she is my best friend.

In 6th grade I become friends with one of the funniest and caring person I have ever met, Andrew.  He is one of those people that you can not hate and always have fun around and I do not think I have ever not laughed around him, even if I was having a bad day because he would find some stupid way to cheer me up.  He is another person who gave me rides to and from school because of the surgery on my wrist and my accident in August. Rachel and Andrew would trade days, Rachel would drive me to school on a red day because we both go LRTC so we took the bus together.  Since Rachel drives straight to LRTC on white days Andrew offered to bring me to school. Before summer break let out, something big happened to Andrew and he started to close himself from his friends because he did not know who to trust anymore. Around that same time is when I had my ganglion cyst surgery and I was in a big cast for about one month and could not get my wrist or the cast wet and could not really do anything.  Andrew and I spent most of the summer on his boat talking about what happened during the past year and (when I was finally able to get my wrist wet) I would push him off the edge of his boat and then he would push me off, then we would talk and then we would jump off the boat and then talk some more and then we would jump off and repeat that over and over. We both helped each other this summer, I helped him with the problem he had and he helped me with rides and having fun even with a cast on my wrist for the majority of summer. Even when I thought I could not do anything fun he made absolutely sure that I would.

What I have learned from this is that people may come and go, but the people who stay are the ones you can always count on and will always be there for you when you need them. I have found that the ones who leave in high school show who your real friends are. The ones who stay. They are the ones who pick you up when you feel like crying and they laugh at you when you fall and take silly pictures and videos with you to show the whole the world that you are their best friend, their family, their goofball, their partner in crime, their best friend. Overall this was the best last summer of high school and I could not be more happy and thankful that I spent it with my best friends, scratch that, I mean my family. Photo by Joe Parks on Foter.com / CC BY-NC