How life feels with the right people.

When you’re little, friendship feels fun. It feels like the excitement of anticipating when you’ll hang out next and appreciating time together just because of shared similar interests. It’s asking your mom if you can call a friend for a play date and hoping they’re free for the day – it’s shared community and time together. I was in the same proximity as those I was friends with, and that seemed to be the main point of value – spending time with others, and not being alone in my enjoyment of life, or just not being alone and bored anymore. In elementary school, I remember the security of having a best friend, and them calling me their best friend too. It was each of us choosing to put each other on a pedestal, and there was some sense of automatic love because of our intention, the trust and understanding that we were each other’s person. 

When I realized someone didn’t think I was their best friend, too, I felt a sense of betrayal because I didn’t feel chosen. Throughout different relationships, I began to learn that I don’t always think the same as others, and I became more selective with who I spent my time around. Through development, I know that as we grow, we begin to think deeper with the intention of why we care for others, and what we value about another person. We come to value who they are, and we choose who we feel secure with through life’s stages. We make the effort in sustaining relationships because we care for the entirety of a person, and how they view life. We seek people who push us to grow, who support us through our choices, and who truly want the best for our futures.

As I grew older, relationships became more complicated, and as they became less about proximity and more about meaning, I started to question who I was within them. At eighteen, I asked my therapist if it was normal to have such different friend groups in different areas in my life. I was concerned if who I was with each of these people was the entirety of me. I felt as though who I was with each group, was this separate entity of myself. Such that, I couldn’t merge each setting into one full identity of who I was. Then she responded: “That’s the beauty of adulthood – you are in so many different stages and places, and you find people to connect with in each realm you step in.” It’s the natural systems we all are a part of, reaching for community in an environment, at a certain place in our timeline.

I realized that the person I am when I am at college is, yes, different than me when I am at home – but she just has different priorities, and it’s all the same me. The values I live my life by are the same no matter the environment. When I take a certain class, I find myself relating and talking to those around me, due to the context. We’re talking about perception in lecture, so I end up talking with my friends about how we each perceived that present moment. Context becomes the baseline for the choices I make each day. The context of the environment, how I am feeling then, what I’ve been through, and even simple things like the weather of the day make me the way I am. But within each context, what makes a moment feel right? How do moments feel with the right people?  

Life with the right people, to me, almost feels like how friendship felt when I was little. I feel security in being chosen, in feeling effort being put in on either side. Connection happens through the intention that we bring to each moment together. It’s the choice to be there with the other person. Being vulnerable with how you feel, how you see the world – and listening, and observing how another views theirs. The emotional intimacy of taking the time to choose someone.

As each of our perceptions and realities is different, connecting with someone is like putting on a pair of glasses and briefly seeing the world as they do. But within the differences and in viewing another’s world, there comes security in appreciating their true self without judgment and allowing another person to just be. On the other side of that, things feel right when I feel as though I can be who I am, fully, without the fear of judgment. When there is a mutual understanding of unconditional love, and that you don’t have to be anything other than yourself to feel that love. The idea that what we give to others shall not always be expected back, but that we care about someone so much that lifting them up in life is one of our favorite activities.

Throughout unconditional love, however, I have found that my relationships fit best when each person gives on each end. Someone I knew once said, “A good relationship contains both people hoping for the best for the other, and wanting to be a part of the things that are best for them. But, to not confuse that with entirely losing yourself in another person, in hopes perhaps that you will one day receive what you give them.” I think the most important thing in fitting within a relationship is the acknowledgment of differences. Not that two people are just alike and have the same perspectives, but just the opposite. The idea that there are things you will never fully understand about the other, but that you try to understand the view that one has on the world. Primarily on the basis that there aren’t things you would want to change about the people you love, but rather admiration of those differences. The sort of unconditional love that makes the world go ‘round. Where can we sit in the present, cherishing the simultaneous similarities and differences we each have?

Friendships, as I’ve grown up, are those who reach for me. In tough moments when I feel I am alone, they reach for my heart and mind – in hopes of not solving every problem, but being there with me through it. They ask questions, they listen, and they stay. It’s playing Would You Rather in hopes of further understanding their perspectives and having a conversation on why we think the way we do. The people in my life that I know love me the most are those who understand the complexities of life and what comes at each of us. The understanding of where you are in life, and where they themselves are at as well. Where communicating isn’t a task, but it is something wanted – where each of our minds reach for each other, in hopes of further understanding.

Some of you challenge the way I think, some of you bring me peace when my mind feels too loud, and some of you remind me how to find joy in the smallest things. In many ways, the friendships that feel right now are the ones that resemble the simplicity of childhood. The act of being chosen, and choosing others in return, and finding the joy and security through understanding one another. And sometimes it’s even the bliss of feeling understood, and coexisting together. Or, a simple friendship-bound pinky promise to ease the mind.

• college
• friends
• friendship
• growing up
• life
• unconditional love