Friendship...

FRIENDSHIP

My friends have always been my extended family, especially as a child and adolescent. My house was "that house" where the door was always open and the place was always full. My parents never said no to my brother and I having our friends over, knowing how important those friendships would be in our lives and the kinds of lessons they would teach us for our future. How right they were!

I have learned so much about people, but especially myself through my friendships. Just like with family, some of our best and worst personalities traits come out with our friends. This is because with our true friends, we trust them and believe in their support, loyalty and compassion.
Sometimes you put up walls not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down. ~Author unknown

-This is me. I used to trust too much as a child, so as I got older, I learned how to build walls around myself and it was always just the right people who broke them down. For the most part, I have maintained my trust for most of those people, but nothing is always perfect. I've let down those walls with a few people and realized my mistake in painful and hurtful ways. So, I put them back up and it's not up to me, but to them to break them down.-

A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future and accepts you just the way you are. ~Author unknown

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend. ~Albert Camus (and later Pooh :-)

A friend is someone who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. ~Walter Winchell

-I have thousands of memories, good and bad, of my friends and sometimes, these memories are what get me through the day. My childhood best friend, "Kay," helped shape me into the person that I am today, just like my family and the rest of my friends. I learned invaluable lessons throughout childhood about love, loss, trust, compassion, hate, loneliness, honesty, etc. as the result of these friendships. Now, as an adult, I am able to form more mature friendships that help me dive deeper into myself and choose whether or not that wall stays up or not. I've learned the hard way when to break it down, but when I do, amazing friendships blossom.-