Covid-19 sucks. This isn’t news. This isn’t a “hot take”. It’s lonely and much longer than anyone expected, it’s deadly and horrendous. And for us Rhodes residents and many other college students from out of state, it’s meant the implosion of a world we were just starting to call home, and the scattering of those we consider our dearest loved ones. Among the many struggles the virus has caused, it’s thrown many relationships into a stage of long-distance that they were never expecting. Perhaps this is a minor struggle compared to the more physical or fatal effects corona has had on others, but it is a hard and helpless feeling nonetheless and one that I believe a lot of you can relate to.
I was lucky, and throughout this ridiculously dystopian global event, I’ve got a friend and they deserve some good ol’ fashioned anonymous love.
My friend is kind. They place others before themselves with every decision that they make, for better or for worse, and they do it without any expectation of glory. They help others because they feel deeply in their heart that they are here to do the most good they can do. They help not for the thanks or the flattery that comes after, but because they feel it is their obligation, as a person on this planet in a position to help, to provide it. They would throw a pillow at me and argue that they are simply being a decent person, but the problem with decent people is that nowadays and maybe forever, decency is the extraordinary in humans. Being a decent human actually makes you an amazing one. I don’t make the rules, although for the length of this article and all of our text conversations, my friend, I do.
My friend is clever. I am a dumbass. And yet every problem I spill to them, beg them to help me with, ask their advice of, they have an answer either prepared or delayed five minutes but well researched. Anything from medical advice (ask your doctors but first ask my friend) to scouring the depths of Netflix for the perfect “I hate everything and everything hates me, so I want to laugh at a fucking children’s cartoon because animation can be enjoyable to adults too” film, my friend’s got my back. For every emotion, every idea, every stupid joke, and every innocent question, they are there for me. They are a master of meme-making, with humor as dry as kindling, and a resting bitch face to really just add to the ambiance and make their quips soar. I have never laughed harder than I do with them. They will claim stupidity, argue that they are merely of average intelligence. And yet, ask them anything about their interests or simply about being a good person, and you’ll be baffled by their words. I guarantee it or your money back.
My friend is beautiful. They have the aura of a European and I don’t really know what that means, but I know that it’s true. I know that if I saw them sitting in a cafe in Paris or leaning against the St. Charles Bridge in Prague, I would pass them and think that person is meant to be here. They fill up a space, and not in that loud obnoxious way that people often do, demanding your attention and making you afraid or ashamed not to give it to them. Instead, they fill the space up with their openness. You see them and, somehow, you just know that if you approached this person and you asked for help, they’d bend over backwards to give it to you. It sounds negative to describe the energy of a person as void or wanting, but let me explain myself. Their energy is not full, it is not bursting at the seams of their personal space, spilling over tables, neither is it quiet or restrained or busy. It’s waiting, ready for someone to interact with it, for someone to require its services and let it fill itself up to provide them. It’s one of my favorite things about them, that safe haven of energy. They look like the kind of person I always wanted to be, in the know and take charge and organized and powerful. A badass behind the scenes. They are beautiful, all over, inside and out, always.
My friend is honest. They do not shy away from the ugly sides of life. They confront it and yell in its face and tell it to shape up. They do not allow themselves to be stepped on and they do not allow themselves to step on others. They take what they dish out, and when they can’t take it, they tell you. When you’re angry with them or hurt or annoyed or confused or any other emotion, you can tell them and they will not only hear you out, but they will be glad for it. And if you, like me, are not one of these wonderful people like my friend, they will be immensely proud of you when you eventually learn from them how to stand up for yourself – and even when you use those new skills to stand up to them sometimes. They will hype you up and support you even as you are telling them why they upset you because they understand life’s complexities and that a moment can be joyous and upsetting. That anxiety doesn’t keep itself in a cage that only unlocks for the bad moments of life…it can invade even the happiest of days. They have the hard conversations and recover from them. They push you to evolve with them, push your relationship to become the best it possibly can be – a constant work in progress that is not frowned upon for its imperfections but cherished for its constant bettering. They will tell you what you’ve done wrong, but at the same time tell you even the smallest things that you do that matter to them. If you were lucky enough to be their friend, you would feel known and loved and paid attention to. And you would not feel fragile in that. But if you did, because everyone does sometimes, they would listen to you let it out and they would work with you, if you wanted to, to fix the problem as best it could be.
My friend is many more things but these are enough good things to force my friend to read about theirself. I’ll text you later, friend.
Thank you.