As you get older, everything seems to get a little more complicated. And friendship is no exception. Something that used to be as simple as walking up to someone and asking them to play has now become trying to find an hour window your both free in the next 6 months, listening to each other vent about school/work/relationships, and supporting each other through some of your most pivotal life moments.

In some ways, the added complication to friendship as you grow up is kind of great. And in other ways, it can feel exhausting when you know you’re not doing it well… but you want to… but you just don’t have the capacity to right now… and you feel like you’re not getting the right energy from your friends, etc, etc. 

But I think that friendship is one of the most beautiful things we get to be a part of on earth. Unlike any of our other relationships, it’s the only relationship where we’re not really expecting much in return. For professional, familial, and romantic relationships, we expect the other person to mentor, guide, or care for us. But with friendship, you literally started hanging out with that person just because you liked their vibes and you love each other for the sole purpose of loving each other. Nothing obligates you to start being friends with someone and nothing obligates you to continue being friends with someone.

C.S. Lewis said “to love at all is to be vulnerable.”

I’ve been thinking about what this means, specifically in the context of friendship. To me, the vulnerability is two-fold.

When you become friends with someone and eventually love them, what you’re doing is allowing yourself to be (1) vulnerable to all of their emotions. When you love someone you hurt when they hurt, you cry when they cry, you celebrate when they celebrate. And when you let yourself be exposed to this emotional turmoil on behalf of someone else you’re (2) also letting them see your hurts, fears, and dreams with no guarantee that they will bear with you in those experiences like you bore with them.

Me personally, I’m a cry baby. I’m super sentimental, I cry when other people do, I like to take 1000 photos to make sure the moment is captured, and admittedly most of my friendships feel one-sided because of how much love I want to give. 

I think I’m so sentimental because I like to dwell in the moments that we show each other love. The moments that we show it proudly and unknowingly, deeply and intimately, through words and gifts, smiles and laughs, cards and hugs. Even the moments that we let pass by day by day but when we look back they are what mean the most: meaningless conversations at breakfast, random texts sent throughout the day, or a small thing that reminds us of them.

I understand that not all friendships are that deep (which is totally okay). However, when talking about close friendship and God’s design for friendship, it is that deep.

Yes, it may hurt when our burdens aren’t carried correctly or the way we want them to be or it may hurt when someone else’s burdens feel quite heavy. I’ve been through both.

But I’ve also been thinking about how much of a privilege and honor it is to bear someone else’s burdens. What a joy it is to love someone so deeply that when tears are in their eyes they are in mine too.

And while friendship is a relationship that you don’t expect anything in return… the return on investment can be big.

When we finally get the call we’ve been waiting for, we have someone to tell.

When we’re driving down the street and see a certain restaurant our mind brings us back to late nights of laughs and memories.

When we’re stuck in our head about what can go wrong, our friends can remind us of the good that exists. Sometimes their presence is the good that exists.

When we are reminded that other people are going through things that may be just as heartbreaking, heartwarming, or heart-mending, it puts our own trials into perspective but also comforts us in knowing that we don’t have to go through life alone.

Life was not meant to be done alone.

Thanks for reading ❤