One for All

Friendship is a strange thing. Pardon the passive voice. Before I get too far ahead of myself, I just want to make clear a little tendency of mine (in response to all the requests I never get). When writing any of these pieces, I very rarely sit down and say, "Sean, write.”, and the occasions on which I do often prove disastrous mockeries of the English language. It would probably make sense if I were to say, "Sean, sit down and mindlessly hit backspace after every incomplete sentence you try to complete." Therefore, I think it's best if I let you decide which type of post this is; the sort that feels a lot like having stale bagels forced down your throat, or the sort that resembles that strange substance the dentist puts in that weird mouth-guard-type-thing to clean your teeth (and, naturally, the flavor that blurs the line between tasty and disgusting).

Sometimes life feels like nothing more than an epic conflict-resolution session. We're constantly making mistakes, and therefore our lives inherently become our search for the remedy. Some people feel the answer lies in Christ. Other people turn to drugs. Even larger (no pun intended- maybe) numbers of people let twinkies and big macs do the job. But in all seriousness, is friendship not equally as important as Jesus, doobies, and ding-dongs? I've certainly made my share of mistakes, we all have, but if we all had to wait until the end of our lives to find solace, then the average lifespan would hover around 15. Friendship is the ticket to happiness, if not relative peace of mind. Friends don't judge. Friends don't blame. Friends certainly don't turn their backs on one another. The beauty of friendship eases the pains of living.

I often wonder how useful friends would be if I never made mistakes. Well, not that often. I'm usually too busy making some sort of mistake to question my need for friendship - which leads me to my next point(!). Life is a constant series of questions and answers, mistakes and resolutions. More often than not the mistakes we make simply can't be undone, yet the presence of our friends relieves us of that bitter truth. In a certain sense we prove to be our harshest critics, overwhelming ourselves with the mistakes we've made, constantly legitimizing the need for friendship. If I solved all of my own problems, then I'd most likely spend much of my time talking to trees, not human beings. But that's the glory of living (and probably why trees can't talk). We help each other out, we listen, we emote, we care, and we realize that sometimes we just can't do it all alone.

Little epiphanies like this make life that much easier to swallow. I learn every day that I'm not going to find all the answers at once- that trial and error is the name of game. I learn that I've got friends because I've got problems, I make mistakes. But more than that, I've got friends because they do too.