It’s my senior year, and while I’ve lost a lot of friends and gained a lot of friends throughout my existence, it feels strange knowing that the end of this year will mark another time in my life that friends will purposely leave and enter. I’m not upset about that—it’s only life, but because of this, I’ve been thinking about my friends a lot lately.
As it happens, today is Facebook’s 12th birthday, and apparently they’ve been thinking about friendships, too. In an emotionally charged compilation of pictures, Facebook came up with a campaign to showcase social networks, AKA friends. And thus, #friendsday began.
When I went to check out my video, I wasn’t sure if I’d like it. As I said, I’ve been considering my friendships a lot lately and I was a little nervous to see what Facebook thought about the people I surround myself with. I loved my video, though. It showed me people I care about and the moments that I shared with them. And even though I’m not as close with some of those people, or I don’t get to see them as much, I’m still glad they were in my video. Every friendship I’ve ever had has helped me become who I am, and Facebook’s #friendsday video showed a little part of that.
My mom once told me, “friends are like elevators. They can bring you up, or they can take you down.” Now, okay, my mom told me that when my two friends from middle school and I skipped a free ACT prep class to go to 7/11 and Rite Aid and she was trying to explain peer pressure and how friends can affect actions, but that’s not all that sentence can mean. It can be so much more.
Good friends can bring you up and hold you there in a warm hug of love and affection. They can encourage you to shoot for the stars and make you feel good about yourself and most everything you do. They’ll tell you to do things because they know what will make you better and make you happy. They’ll support you and tell you when you’re being an idiot in the best way possible. And, they’ll laugh with you until your sides hurt and eat grilled cheese with you at three in the morning just because you had a craving. These friends are good friends.
Bad friends, on the other hand, can drag you down to the depths of despair. They can make you anxious and stressed out. They can make you feel worthless and uneasy, like your goals are pointless and shouldn’t be reached for. They can do rude or obnoxious things to you that make you question why you would be friends with them in the first place. Here’s a hint: you’re not. Drop. Those. Friends.
Everyone deserves to have good friends who bring you to the top floor of the Empire State Building. Yep, that’s right, I’m sticking with the weird elevator thing. So, if you find yourself being lowered to some dark and stinky basement by your “friends”, just know that you don’t have to get off the elevator with them. Say good bye and find the people who really care about you. Believe me, they’re out there waiting to journey skyward.
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