A good friend

Maybe it is something I still don’t fully understand, how you can begin to know someone and as you do you get a feeling that this is a person you WANT to be your best friend. It can be subtle but clear. Kind of like how sometimes you can just know or tell from first impressions. Your first impressions, or rather their first impressions on you, just give you a sense of security. You are intrigued. Remember Star Wars? Remember when Yoda says, “um… the force is strong in this one I sense”? Can you sense, as in- is it possible to know while you are still only mere friends or acquaintances, that someone has an extreme potential of becoming your best friend? Or (because it depends just as much on you) that you would want to give yourself over to that person. Can they inspire confidence? Confidence in you that they will be everything you would expect them to be were you to ‘allow’ them to become your best friend?  I think it is very possible. I know it happens. But the best is when that feeling, that first impression, turns out to be true- maybe even more true than you thought it could be. Best friends always exceed your expectations. And it is not that your expectations are low, they are far from low. You may expect the very most from your best friend, as they most likely do of you. It can be fascinating just how much they can surprise you.  

Even when things go terribly wrong, they can surprise you. Not all friendships last forever. You can climb to a point of comfort with someone so strong it seems impossible for things to change, only to fall the next minute so far that you wonder how you ever got so close. Such a change could be caused by circumstances or by the actions of one, the other or both. Sometimes, you can't fully repair what has been done to a friendship that has been lost for these reasons. What was is gone. There is little to hold on to from what once was everything you held on to. But again, the best feeling is when that feeling, that first impression, turns out to be true. After all that has happened, whatever it may be, they stay true. They forgive you or when necessary, ask forgiveness. And whether or not you deserve it or have worked to earn it, they give you again, in some degree, their trust, as a token of what was. Again, more than you ever thought it could be in the beginning, they are a true best friend and exceed your expectations. While you know things have changed and won't go back to how they were, it is ok, because you know that you will always regard them as a best friend.