Have you ever met someone and wondered why they came into your life? Sometimes, people enter our lives unexpectedly, and before we even realize it, they become an important part of our story. Some people stay for years, and some are only around for a short period of time. Regardless of how long they stay, I believe that everyone we meet has a purpose, even if we don’t understand it at first.
Some people are here to teach us lessons: a friend who ended up maybe not being the kindest, a relationship that ended in disloyalty. ClichĂ©s such as “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket” stem from others’ impacts on our own lives. People expose us to love and to trust. Or maybe, people enter our lives to show us what those exposures should never look like. I look back on my own relationships often. The people who are no longer in my life are clearly not meant to be here anymore, but who would I be without them? Who even are we without “our people?” Who would I be without my friends?
My relationships with each of my friends look so insanely different from one another. I have some friends that have been around since before I could walk. Other friends, I made on my own in middle school and high school. And now, I have my college friends. My mother has always told me my college friends will mean the most to me.
They are the ones who, oftentimes, meet us when we are developed into real people. They get to know us for who we are if we have a strong sense of self by the time we are 18. They don’t like or dislike us for someone we are trying to be. It still blows my mind that I have created relationships with some of my favorite people that I didn’t even know existed three months ago. Sometimes, individuals just give you a good feeling. A feeling like “Wow, this girl could stand beside me at my wedding in a few years.” I guess that is just when I claim them as my own.Â
To the contrary, I’ve had relationships with many people who have already come and gone in the short 19 years I’ve been on this planet. I think this is alright. I asked before, “Who would I be without my friends?” Well, the other question is, who would I be without my enemies? When we lose people, we gain a sort of strength. A strength to overcome something or the strength to live on with a lingering pain. People teach us things a textbook never could. I turn to my faith in times of relationship troubles, but these people’s short existence in our lives was God’s plan all along. I simply cannot imagine a life without the people in my own. I am only me because of them, and for that, I’m nothing but grateful.Â