Thank you for being a friend

Relationships are the foundation of life (I know half of you wisenheimers reading this just thought, "No, it's water!" or "No, it's carbon!". Chill out, you're right too). Relationships determine not only how you interact with other living beings, but with every tangible object and abstract idea in existence. There are the relationships you have with others—your spouse or lover, your parents, your friends, your coworkers, your God etc.—and there are the less obvious relationships about which you seldom think; with nature, food, politics, sirens, the plot to Shawshank Redemption, your car, confidence, the ground upon which you walk and the air you breathe. Your entire being is in relation to everything.

So when anyone asks what in life is most important to me, the answer is obvious: Relationships.

Since the day I turned eighteen, I've never lived in any one city for more than four years. Berkeley, Boston and San Diego were home for short periods of time, and Pensacola is it for the next few years—until it's time to pack up and move on once again. Transience isn't rare for someone my age in today's culture. But when it comes to relationships, with each move and with each mile and with each passing day comes the separation and imminent dissolution of one of the most important forms a relationship can take: Friendships. And then comes the need to make new ones.

Remember when you were in elementary school and making a friend was literally as easy as walking up to anyone on the playground and saying, "Will you be my friend?" Boom. That was that. Friend made. You played with them for the rest of recess, sat with them at lunch, got their phone number and called them on the weekend to see if they wanted to come over and play. There were no self-constructed emotional walls, no social anxiety, no pride fueled by the fear of rejection... all of which lead to inaction, and opportunities missed.

Even through college making friends was pretty much that easy (alcohol helped, too, by that point). You were surrounded by thousands of like-aged and like-minded people in the same phase of life in one concentrated area; you were in the trenches together, spurring the formation of inevitable comraderies.

Then we became adults, and making new friends got hard.

With every move and every year that ticks off the calendar, sparking new friendships gets exponentially more difficult. I'm not talking about acquaintances—those are easy. I can be friendly with just about anyone. I'm talking about deep, meaningful friendships.

I half-joked with my best friend (since age 5) before moving to Pensacola this summer that I was going to revert back to my elementary school mindset and just ask people, "Will you be my friend?" To me, that's the hardest part about moving, having to downgrade great friendships to random texts and monthly-ish phone calls. With each new move, you have to start from scratch in trying to find awesome people to reattain invaluable, first-degree, in-person friendships. And even if you do meet someone with that potential, you can't just ask "Will you be my friend?", because now you're an adult, and adults don't do that. Adults are guarded. Adults have developed a fear of rejection. Adults are paralyzed by pride. Adults are too busy with their own, already-established lives. Other adults don't have time for new friends. These are the thoughts that creep into our minds now. And it sucks. Because I, for one, would love if another adult asked me to be their friend.

So why can't most of us do that?

I guess the reason for this blog post (other than the fact that I will find any excuse to sneak a Golden Girls allusion into something) is that lately I've been reflecting a lot on all the great friendships I've made throughout the years, and am being impatient about making more where I am now. Relationships are the most important thing to me, and currently there is a gaping lack of in-person friendships. I haven't yet mentioned that they always come along: these deep, meaningful friendships. Eventually. And I may have even begun the process of making a few in my current hometown. But the time I spend waiting for them to develop seems indefinite.

Anyway, to all in my past, present, and future—Thank you for being a friend.

Sorry, had to.