Doing Life with Friends

A while back a girl mentioned how I had a lot of friends. If you know me, then you know I rave about my friends any chance I get. Except, she said this in a mocking way. Jokes on her because I do love having my community of friends. I really do. The coffee addict, the ones with dark humor, the athletes, the book worms, the artsy and nature girlies. Each one of them brings some form of value to my life. And I never take that for granted.

Truth is, she isn’t the only one that had made note of this seemingly surprising realization to me. And it got me thinking. Is it wrong for me to have this many friends?

In her TED talk, the psychotherapist Esther Perel said, “You’re asking one person to give you what an entire village used to provide”. She made this statement in reference to romantic relationships. But I think it applies to platonic friendships as well. The key concept here is community.

What I realized is that not every friend has to be extremely close to you. I have all kinds of friends. Friends that I tell my deepest darkest secrets, friends I simply enjoy a cup of coffee with, and the ones who are down to go on hiking adventures with me. Let’s not forget the friends that all we do is share the dumbest jokes.  

We focus so much on romantic relationships and happily ever after that we have come to underestimate the values of having healthy platonic relationships.

Growing up, I had a significant amount of friends. I had church friends, school friends, neighborhood friends, basketball friends, etc. I had different friend groups from different aspects of my life. It was all so fulfilling.

I was eager to go to school every Monday because I knew my friends would be there. I would get sad as the end of school was approaching. My excitement skyrocketed once I got on the school bus. Because I was looking forward to my seeing my neighborhood friends so we can talk about our day and play outside till it got dark. When the weekend came, I would pick out my church outfit ready for Sunday morning. Now that I think of it, I was more excited about seeing my friends than the word of the day in church.

I have always been surrounded by friends growing up. I had my community. I loved the sense of security and love they gave me. That all changed when I moved to the U.S for many reasons

One of the biggest cultural shocks I experienced here is individualism. The “I don’t need anyone in my life” mentality was draining.

 I moved from a country where we take pride in building villages, to a country where isolation is glorified. And what did I do? Acted like the Romans of course. I too began isolating myself from people.

“nobody got me but me” “fake friends everywhere” “I’m better off alone” “Focus on myself”

I practiced these common sayings religiously. And patted myself on the back for placing ahead in the alone marathon.

Trauma and a heavy distrust for people, made me feel like pushing people away was the best thing for me.

Thanks to therapy I finally embarked on a healing journey. I started putting myself out there. I started cultivating healthy friendships based on mutual trust, respect, and love for each other. And my life has improved significantly for the better. Childhood friendship was fun. But adult friendships are a game-changer.

Life isn’t always fun, but my friends make it worth it.

Laughter, joy, sadness, I get to share my experience with them.

They make the dark times bearable and the good times even better.

I have endured a life without friends. I have also experienced life with healthy platonic friendships. Eleven times out of ten, I pick the latter. While some are well enough with having no friends, I prefer having my bunch.

My life has been gravely enriched because of my amazing friends.

I couldn’t imagine doing life without them. To the people I call my friends, the people who for some reason agreed to consistently do life with me, I’m forever grateful for you all.