Day 21: Friendship

I'm writing Ann Dee Ellis' 8 Minute Memoirs in place of #NaNoWriMo.

I've heard people say many times that friends are the family you choose. I always liked that saying.

I chose many of my friends for proximity reasons, but over time, a lot of those proximity friends have held true over years or time and hundreds of miles of separation.

Now I tend to collect friends in the opposite direction. I often befriend people through Facebook groups and in comment sections despite only having been aware of their existence for minutes and living states or countries apart.

Friendship is a funny thing because it's a manufactured bond that you and another person agree on. I do maintain friendships with family members too, but something about picking out a random individual who lives impossibly far away and choosing to make them special to you is really exciting.

I honestly don't know where I'd be without my friends. They hold me up, cry with me (yes, literally), call or text me when one of us is in crisis, support me even when I'm maybe a little bit wrong, and give me the space to grow.

Not to discount everything my family has done for me. But the prompt today is friendship, not family...

There are few things as special as seeing old friends. I had the privilege of attending a friend's wedding in San Diego this past weekend, and I saw several. I loved how easy it was to fall back into a rhythm. We told jokes, we caught up, we danced like it was 2001, and we even sat together at a table. It was like high school all over again but without any of the parts I hated.