Did you know it is hard to be a friend if you don't like yourself. I did not choose my best friend, she chose me. While growing up I was very ambivalent to everything around me. I had so many things going on in my home life, that anything outside of that was irrelevant. My now best friend arbitrarily told me a secret and asked me not to say anything. Now to be honest at the time, I didn't really understand that she needed to tell someone, it didn't dawn on me that this was a test of trust. She said don't tell anyone, I said I wouldn't. I didn't care about her as a friend, but I gave her my word as a person, so I didn't. Now we hung out together, hell it was only 48 or us in my whole grade, but we weren't close. She asked me to keep a secret and I did. As simple as that. She was someone that I admired partly because I envied her skin-colored, and partly because she seemed to get along with everyone, but at the time in those few minutes that I assured her my silence, I did not realize that I was building a life long friendship. I admired her then and now as one of the hardest working females I have ever met. She is constantly striving to be better, make more money, gather more knowledge even at our advance age. She puts everything in a future perspective. What will happen down the line? And she works hard for the results she strives for. I am more of a live now. I can admit, contrary to my outer appearance, I slightly flighty and a bit of a hippie. It takes a lot for me to have an opinion on something other than my own life. But that strive for monetary success is something I have wanted to feel my whole life, but I have never gathered what ever that feeling is, but I have always known, since high school, she was going to succeed.
We lost touch a year after high school. but our sophomore year we started hanging out again. She was driven. She studied, worked, and raised her son. So me re-entering her life was like a tornado. I was a social hurricane. I was in sorority. I was the president of 2 club, and the vice-president of another. And I also had my underground friends......We were all at my apartment one day chilling in the cypher, and someone handed to her, and I stopped them. I said that she couldn't be part of this crew, I might need a job one day, so one of us had to succeed. 20 years later AT&T lays off 5000 people, guess who gave me a job. I have learned that you don't tear down that which you admire, you bloom in its presence. So where am I going with this, well I surround myself with that which I desire the most, but am lacking. I don't break it. I cherish and protect it. Friendship is just like any marriage, if you don't feel deserving of it, you are already at a fail. If your self-esteem cannot handle the success of those you surround yourself with, it is not their fault. Recognize the skin you are in, is it comfortable, can you breath, or you slowing self-destructing while putting on the mask of arrogance.
At my age, I am still evolving and getting even more comfortable in the skin I'm in. I still have issue with physical color, (that is a whole different issue) but I am comfortable enough that I only think about it once in a blue moon. I still don't have many friends, I have developed a learned behavior to be very stand-offish, I no longer blame others for that, I realize in this instance I am at fault. I haven't made an effort to change, so I accept this flaw in myself without blame. But what I am most comfortable about the skin I am in is my ability to like me. If I can be comfortable and like who I am, guess how great I can be as a friend. If I like myself, why would I be jealous of you. If I like myself, why would I ever feel the need to tear you down. If I like myself, I can be the shoulder you can cry on if needed, and it will be our secret. Self-reflection time, do you like you, if you don't, how can you truly like anyone else. How can you truly be a friend.
My best friend
(this should appeal to her narcissism, all on my freakin' blog)
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