Campfyre Stories

Who would you lie for?  Who would you die for?  Who would you visit in the hospital?  How many people outside of your family would you dare to tell that you love them?  What are your boundaries and what are your definitions?

I have a friend, a very good friend who listed me as her beneficiary for her life insurance policy.  She considers me her best friend and I feel the same way about her.  When she told me about the life insurance thing I was touched, when she told me again several years later (since I had completely forgotten), she brought me to tears.  I don’t really want to think about death much at all, but knowing that she trusts me with that kind of responsibility is, to me, what that real deep friendship is.

I think that most people have few true friends in their lives.  Sure, you have friends that last lifetimes and maybe even people you love so much that you might as well consider them family, but there’s a certain bond that comes about only a couple of times and even then, only if you’re lucky.  It’s something that doesn’t come anywhere near romance, but allows you to still say "I love you" and, as importantly, to hear it.  I think that for men it’s probably a little different, without the physical affection and, probably, without the words, but I’ve been lucky enough to see that bond between some men as well as some women.

I think there are people who don’t know who their best friend is.  If you asked them, they would give you one answer, but if you asked those around them, they would know who it really was.  I also think that there are some people who just don’t have one and whenever I see that, it makes me sad. 

You have to understand, I spent a significant portion of my life not having a best friend.  Much of that was simply because I hadn’t yet learned how to trust people, but also it was because we had moved so many times that I just couldn’t open myself up to the loss.  When I finally met my best friend it was years and years later, when neither one of us was looking.  It took her saying for me to even realize that I finally had that, for real.

This is the person who knows more of my secrets that anyone else, except possibly my brother, but she probably knows more than he does.  She can tell when something’s wrong before she picks up the phone, she can call me and break down and I’ll understand every word she says.  She’s the one I run to when things get to be too much and I do the same for her. 

I always wished I had a sister, but this is even better, since we don’t have to be rivals for our parents’ affection, but the irony in that is that we love each other’s parents as much as we can, and we understand all the drama that ties in with family life.

When I sat down to write, I didn’t have a theme or subject or intention, but I wasn’t really expecting this.  I expected it, as I started, to be something a little more general.  Now that I’ve written it I can’t help but wonder whether or not people know who their best friend is, or even if they have one.  Married couples usually think that their spouse is their best friend, but I think that most of them are wrong, because your best friend is the one who stands by you during your fights with your spouse, h/she’s the one who is the shoulder you cry on during breakups and that is never your girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or wife or any other kind of partner.  Your best friend transcends all of those other things and is just there for you.

So I challenge you, all of you who made it to the end of this entry.  Think about who your best friend is, and then ask around, your significant other, your friends, and see if it’s really who you think it is.

Mine’s the one who lets me cry on her shoulder, calls me her voice of reason and tells me she loves me.  Interestingly enough, she’s one of the few who are really close to me and don’t actually read my blog.  So she never knows when I say nice thing about her.

And I almost think that that’s the way it should be.