Casey Alixandra
For some, friendship is one of the hardest things to obtain. There’s a sense of fragility to it, and many end up drifting apart. But that’s also what makes friendships so special. It’s a choice. An unadulterated love with the want to experience life together.
Friends can also be the most influential and important figures a person can have. Whether they are there for three years or 10, friends help shape who you are. That’s the beauty of friendship, no matter how short lived, it was significant, and the connection was real.
However, many people can go through life never experiencing such a connection. Constantly meeting new people and not clicking just right. And for the longest time, that was me too. I, as well, secretly longed for the friendships seen in sitcoms.
And while I have had friends throughout my life, the relationships were never close. But finally, after years of wishing, I now look at my surroundings and see that my wish for pure friendship is finally all around me. Like a maze, we all met through people we knew and found our way to each other.
In my friend group, we believe life should be enjoyed. We don’t want to live for just the weekend or for that one holiday. We want to truly live.
And with our judgment-free imaginations and our wild ideas, we created Fancy Night, a night where we dressed our best and played Monopoly like we owned it. It was a night of constant laughter and dramatization.
From then on, theme nights became every other month occasions. But these aren’t events where we pull something from our closets. These are events we prepare for. Everything must be related to the occasion: colored lights, themed food and most important, the outfits. We want to believe we are somewhere else for a night.
Since our first theme night, we’ve only gotten more creative. We’ve had Fort Night, a night where we turned the entire house into a fort. Color Party, where we made the house into sections of the rainbow and kept our color costumes a secret ’til the night of. Dance Party, where we made the inside of our house look like a disco ball. t doesn’t matter if we invite five or 13 more people because we genuinely enjoy our time together.
Over time and with the help of my 35mm camera, we now have books and books of candids proving we are living our lives.
Friendship, of course, isn’t always smiling and laughing. Like all relationships, you must have empathy and be open minded. It’s being able to love each other’s differences, telling each other when we are wrong, and being there for each other when life gets hard.
I believe while growing in a friendship, you are also growing as a person. Through friendships, you are challenged, you admit your faults, and with that, it humbles you as a person. It takes true empathy and vulnerability to be an honest good friend. Like all other relationships, love too needs to be reciprocated in friendships. Friendship, in the end, is growing together and looking back on what you both conquered together.
Since February is Friendship Month, now is the time to tell your friends what they should already know. Whether you tell them every day, it can never be said enough.
As for mine…
Nick, Casey, Jared, Dylan, and Andrew,
I love you all so much. We met at different times and different places, so for all of us to become friends is truly one of the best things to have happened to me. I love how similar we all are and yet nowhere near the same. I’ve learned from each and every one of you and still do.
You all are not only my friends but my chosen family.
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