No Wasted Tears

Lfinn22 and I have been friends since 3rd grade. You’d think that with how long I’ve known her, that I would know everything there is to know about her life. However, I have a desire to know the deep stuff about lfinn22; the stuff that you can’t learn from the surface.

Lfinn22 and I’s friendship is something that I will always treasure, and I wanted to learn more about lfinn22 to grow that friendship. The more you understand a person, the easier it is to get along with them. I also was curious as to what similarities and differences lfinn22 and I have in our personalities and how those things impact our friendship. 

I interviewed lfinn22 during my 3rd period white day study hall in the auditorium. It was loud and chaotic as it always is, but I was still able to get a lot of information about lfinn22 and her life outside of what I know of it.

The first thing I learned about lfinn22 is how she handles stress. She doesn’t think that she handles it in a positive way, and it normally involves a lot of crying and mental breakdowns. She says that, “I procrastinate a lot, and then I think it’s not worth it, then I do it.” Eventually, she uses all of that bound up emotion to get everything done.

When it comes to motivation, lfinn22 is motivated by her future. She wants to have success and be able to make money. She also finds motivation in being better than her sister and living up to what she has accomplished. When it comes to academic motivation, lfinn22 says that, “there’s some classes where it’s easy to just look up the answers, but [she doesn’t] want to do that because in the medical field you have to know your stuff or else you’ll mess up.” She doesn’t want to look unqualified in front of other people, which motivates her to work hard and do well.

When asked what her biggest disappointment in life was, lfinn22’s answer wasn’t a single event. She said that, “I feel like I mess up a lot so I disappoint myself a lot.” She is harder on herself than she should be, but I expected this with how big her heart is and how much I know she tries to do what she believes is right. She also doesn’t like to disappoint her family, and especially her dad, whom she knows has high expectations of her. She doesn’t want to let those people that she cares so much about down. 

I wanted to know what lfinn22 would change if she could go back in time. First of all, she said that she would spend more time with her family. For example, “When my grandparents were down and I would choose to go in my room, I would choose to make more time for them.” She also said that she would spend more time on her schoolwork along with spending more time with her dogs that are no longer alive. Altogether, she would dedicate more time to the things that matter to her. 

Success is definitely something that motivates lfinn22, so what’s next is knowing what she defines as success. According to lfinn22, “If you get good grades and do your work then that’s good, but I feel like happiness is the biggest way to success.” Happiness is her ultimate goal and she knows that if she’s happy, then she has reached what she wants in life. 

When it comes to decisions, lfinn22 says that the hardest ones for her to make are simply where to go to eat and what to order. However, I dug deeper and asked lfinn22 about the big decisions and which ones tend to be the most difficult for her to make. She finds the hardest choices to be when there is a right thing to do and a wrong thing, and you want the wrong choice, “but it’s hard because you know you need to do the right thing but you want to do the other thing.” That push and pull of knowing what’s right but wanting what’s wrong is something that I feel almost all people, including myself, have to face and overcome.

When asked what her greatest strength is, lfinn22 responded with, “when I think something’s wrong, I say something and stick up for myself.” She always does what she thinks is right and doesn’t let other people push her around, something I admire about her. When asked about her weaknesses, lfinn22 said that she tends to be impatient. She also said that she can be bipolar with her feelings, and her mood can change very fast.

I finished up my interview with lfinn22 by asking her if she prefers to be around people or alone. She said that generally she would prefer to be with people because being around others makes her happy. However, sometimes her “social battery” runs out and that’s when she prefers to be alone, but she doesn’t feel like herself when she’s not around other people.  In the end, lfinn22 said that, “more often than not I would like to be with people because I’m depressed when I’m alone, whereas when I’m with people I feel happy and alive.”

In conclusion, I learned a lot about lfinn22 and her views and values. A lot of these were very similar to me. We both cry under stress, we find decisions to be difficult, and we enjoy being around other people, just to name a few. However, we also have some differences in views and behaviors, and that’s okay. If there’s one thing that this interview with lfinn22 taught me, it’s that friendship doesn’t depend on two people being the same. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s difficult to be friends with someone you have nothing in common with, but I’ve found that the strongest friendships are the ones that balance each other out. What might be one person’s strength could be someone else’s weaknesses, and vice versa. In the end, a healthy friendship is one where both people can live, laugh, love, and of course, cry together.

“A cute Dog 4” by Chen Vision is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0