Journal Writing Project ~ Best friends

By Alexis King
Best friends, the people there for you when you have no one else. The people that you can laugh with and tell inappropriate jokes with. Best friends, the people that you can trust with your secrets. They’re the people that you can do absolutely nothing with or absolutely everything with and still have an amazing time. They’re our rock. I don’t know about you, but I’d be nothing without my best friends. You can have one best friend, more than one best friend, and even your boyfriend/girlfriend could be your best friend, or at least one of them. They could even be an animal!

Best friends come in all shapes, sizes, gender, and even breeds. You can even make friends online! You can pretty much make friends anywhere; it just takes time, especially if you plan to make them besties for life! Lifelong best friends are hard to come by, though. Some people leave in the midst of getting to know them or just stop talking to you. In that case, you just have to move on with your life and find other friends that are worth your time! I’ve learned from experience. I’ve never been good at making friends, so you have to learn how to fly by yourself when someone comes into your life and just abruptly leaves.

Most of the best friends you will make you will find in a school or work setting. I’d say that’s probably the best way to make friends. That way you get to see them and talk to them almost every day. Online friends are harder to make. You can’t just talk to them all the time, and you always have to be careful about whom you’re talking to. They could be the person who is actually in the picture and who they say they are, or they could be some 40-year-old creep behind a computer catfishing you. People can lie to you about their likes/dislikes and about a lot of other things just to get closer to you for a fraudulent reason, or the person could be legitimately interested in generally the same things as you are.

Your friends don’t even have to be interested in the same things; they can be the complete opposite of you and like nothing that you like. That’s okay, though, because if you haven’t heard, opposites attract. Speaking of attraction, significant others should be one of your best friends! If they aren’t, there might be something wrong. You generally have to start out as friends to grow into something more than friends. Although significant others bond in a slightly different way than normal friends, they are still friends in every way. Having a couple friends that you can trust and have good times with is way better than having multiple different “friends” that talk rudely behind your back and hurt you in ways you can’t possibly imagine.

Best friends should be your rock. They are the people you should be able to trust with your life. Best friends should be one of the best things in your life. They should make you happy, but frustrate you sometimes. They should be the people you spoil and buy lots of presents for Christmas and their birthday! On that note, I’d like to thank my best friends for everything they do and making me smile when I don’t want to smile, when I don’t think I’m able to smile. Thank you for loving me unconditionally, no matter how stubborn I am. I am very grateful for each and every single one of you, even if you live thousands of miles away. (; So a big ‘ol thank you to Yasmin, Hanna, Jaron, and Wayne.

Alexis King is a student at Mabel-Canton High School. She is one of eight area students participating in the Journal Writing Project, now in its eighteenth year.