Lani's Truths

Lani's Truth #3 (The Truth About Friendship)

'Of all the people I've lost, I never thought I'd be losing you.'

Who among us has never thought that? It's unbearably unfair. The truth is, we all lose people, even the people we never thought we could lose, or the people that we never thought would walk away from us.

It's easy to believe that friendship doesn't find you at your best; it finds you when you're a mess. It can be a total stranger in the bathroom of a party who sees you fixing your mascara after an hour of tears and has the decency to ask, 'are you okay?' Maybe they were only curious, or maybe they were uncomfortable and felt like they had to be polite. But somehow, you end up talking to them and somewhere in that sticky centre between your heart and soul, the seed of friendship is planted.

Life does not exist in the significant moments. Life exists in the gaps between the good times and the bad times. The reality is this: your life is not from a certain time until a certain time. It is not as cerebral as you think. It does not elucidate a measure of anything except for the number of breaths that you take from birth until death and moments of significance are completely irrelevant.

It's how you spend those relevant moments, and who you share your breaths with that makes all the difference. My Goodness it can be hard. Sometimes you just don't want to be alone and that is the only motivation you have to project your life onto someone else's. Sometimes it's that forsaking fear of being left alone to your own thoughts that drives a friendship. Often, you're searching for validation. You're waiting for someone to say, 'It's okay, I feel the same way. I get it. That's normal.' You can laugh it off with them, you can tell them about how crappy your day was, or how unsatisfying your lunch was or how afraid you are of starting your new job.

And sometimes, you fall in love in the least romantic way possible. Someone becomes the other half of your soul and you rely on them to expel your own light. They are the spark giving your flint a purpose and without them you can't imagine being able to pave your own way. I mean, sure, everyone gets into shitty fights. People don't always agree and sometime you slip out a comment that you didn't really mean in a bad moment and you see the pain behind their eyes. But then you seek redemption. You remember that you want to share their single bed and eat their last M&M and you feel like such a damn idiot for letting one of those tiny flaws cloud your vision of their glorious light. How could you be so silly? It's these moments when you reflect on how amazing they are. Who else could nurture your soul so gracefully? Who else would put up with your shit?

It's such a vulnerable position to be in. You want someone to hold you up and fill that void within you. You want someone that wants you and needs you and relies on you as much as you rely on them. You want someone that hangs around for any reason other than physical attraction. You want to be loved. But most of all, you want to feel safe. You want to feel like you always have somewhere to go and like there will be someone waiting on the other side of this rain cloud. You want to feel like calling them at three AM will excite them, not annoy them. You want someone to shake you when you're crying about him and say between their own tears, 'You're better than this, my girl. You are so special and so beautiful and you deserve a thousand times more than this. This is not your fault. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere, baby.'

You want to be sure that when things get tough and you're in a million pieces, someone will cut their hands just to pick those pieces up.

But baby, you don't always get what you want.

And the truth is this: the friends that your thought were forever, the people that you loved so much more than your own life won't always pick you up. Sometimes...sometimes they'll be the ones throwing you down. And it's so damn hard, because who do you go to then?

How can you have someone every day and then just not have them anymore? How can the person that you used to share everything with becomes a slight smile and a short wave on the street?

How can the moon be so meticulously distant from the stars when you've watched them grow so close for so long?

We don't have these answers and we probably never will. There will never be a good enough reason as for why the people that we love leave us. There will never be a good enough reason to justify the only person you trust betraying you.

There will never be a way to make yourself forget the memories, or make yourself feel better about the shitty truth that sometimes, people are only destined to walk the same path for a couple of miles and then you have to endure missing them until somebody else stumbles into your lane.

But I promise you this: there will be somebody out there that loves you enough that they will always divulge from their own passage to hold onto your hand and guide you through the mud and whisper in your ear, 'Hey, we'll be alright. We'll make it through this together. I love you to all the stars and back.'