Friends to Live For

There are two types of friends.

There are ones who seem nice for a time, but slowly, make you feel more and more alone when they're around.  You smile more than you speak.  You nod and listen to the stories.  You watch them make plans in front of you that don't include you.  You find yourself thinking about how irrelevant you are, how much more fun they'd have without you.  You think of the age gap between you and question your own maturity.  You realize no one is listening and let your words trail off and slip into a silence that feels like choking.  You feel like you're watching them in a TV show and no matter how loud you try to interject, the sound won't go through.  You force out laughs that feel like knives in your heart and lumps in your throat and when the night is over, you feel so much worse than you did when it began.  And you can, you should, do without them.

But then there are others.

There are ones where you laugh until your face hurts, and the laughs are ugly and genuine and whole.  Your chest aches for air in between the laughs and the stories and the talking because you haven't stopped to breathe.  Your breaths feel like magic filling your lungs.  Your veins are full of sunshine and fire you feel silly and loved and crazy in all the right ways.  The night is dark or the morning is young and even when all the stories have been told and you're worn out from laughter, you sit side by side in a wholesome silence that fills you peace instead of anxiety.  You are lightheaded with the joy of the future with these people, and with the possibility of this moment.  You don't have to say the right things, or do what makes sense because everything is so incredibly messy and beautiful already.  And the world somehow feels both huge and tiny but in a way that brings goosebumps to your skin and a smile to your face for days to come.  And for every one of the these friends, you thank the Lord a dozen times because they make you feel like the world belongs to you and like you have a home here.  And that is beautiful, that is what you live for.