A Really Kindred Spirit

This year I decided to boycott Valentine's Day, mostly because I am sick of the emphasis our culture puts on love equaling money. If you do not buy an overpriced card and box of chocolates for the one you love, you are a horrible person. My roommate can tell you about the rant I went on about the capitalization and commercialism of Valentine's Day and how it makes being single even harder. Now that the overly commercialized Valentine's Day is over, though, I would like to say something about one particular form of love: friendship.

The rather obscure American author Elbert Hubbard said about friendship that "a friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you." How true I have found that to be over the last four or five years. Growing up in tiny Tehachapi, California, I did not have any real friends. I made friends with several girls, and I thought we would be bosom friends, but they moved away. Like Anne of Green Gables I always wanted a bosom friend, "an intimate friend...a really kindred spirit to whom I could confide my inmost soul." I was very close to my cousins Anna and Anastasia, but as they lived two hours away we did not see each other very often. I still am very close to them, though we live in different parts of the country and hardly ever see each other any more. I was honored to be a bridesmaid in each of their weddings this past summer, and I remember with fondness and a smile all of the happy and crazy times we had together.

I would not say that I was unhappy or lonely growing up. I have always been a bit of a loner; I love to sit by myself and read or write. I do enjoy the company of a good friend, however, something that was lacking in my life until I went to college, aside from my dear friend Hannah. Hannah and I met more than ten years ago when she and her family lived in Tehachapi. We became very close friends, and when they moved away not long after we became pen pals. I still have the very long letters (more than ten full pages) that we wrote. When we started college, we did not write as often, and our letters are not as long, but our friendship has not diminished. This past summer we had the good fortune of being able to spend a few days together, three of the best days of that year.

When I went to college I began to make more friends. My closest friend was, and still is, my roommate, Jennifer. After her comes my "inner circle" of classmates: Sarah, Jessica, Christine, and Clare. Clare and I did not become very close until our senior year, but when we did I was glad, because though we are total opposites, Clare always brought a ray of extroverted sunshine into my very introverted life. Sarah is the sweetest person I have ever met; Jessica is a wonderful, delightful, perfectly awesome-in-all-ways sort of person; Christine is a generous, empathetic, and delightfully sarcastic person; and Jennifer - well, Jen is my best friend. She knows me almost as well as my own sisters. I let her hear my stories in progress.


I love all of these girls for different reasons, and for the same reason. I love them because they love me, and they accept me for who I am. None of them judge me on my looks or how I dress or how I talk. They have always put up with my quietness and my orneriness and my very wide sarcastic streak. They have laughed with me, and cried with me. They have seen me at my best and at my worst. And they still love me, and are always there for me. We have had some very good times together and done some very crazy things together.

The same thing goes for your family. Your family is like a permanent best friend. They may annoy you until you want to pull your hair out and disown all of them, but they are always there for you, just like your best friends. And your sisters (once you all grow up and move out of the very extremely long sibling rivalry stage) are great friends as well.

I still marvel that I have such good friends. I cannot imagine life without any of them. My only regret is that I have not known most of these wonderful girls my whole life. To all my friends, old and new, I love you with all my heart and I thank you for your friendship. As Winnie the Pooh says, "If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you."