I was recently thinking about some of the people in my life that I hold dearest to my heart. I was thinking about why it is I value these individuals so highly amongst others. Was it the duration of the friendship? Was it the similarities and commonalities between us? What was it exactly which stood out in my mind with these friends where I feel unconditional love towards them? In thinking about this the last few days, I may have found the answer. There is no rhyme or reason to any of this except I’ve narrowed it down to their acts of kindness and how these acts have stuck with me over the years. It could have been one 20 second moment or a 20 hour event, but these friends in particular have impacted my life by their simple act(s) of kindness and that in my mind is precisely what separates them from the rest.
I had just moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Before I left Seattle I went through this super weird phase where I didn’t really want to see many of my friends – now I realize this was me disconnecting. Then I didn’t even think anything of it, but my friends noticed. They continued to ask me why I didn’t want to see them and I denied acting strange. So, I moved, and one friend in particular tried to keep in touch with me. It was fine, nothing bad, and nothing special, we operated as normal. She then moved to Philadelphia for a job so somewhat closer to where I was than being in Seattle. I had to return to Seattle to attend a friend’s wedding and with the lovely online business model of Priceline cheap flight scheduling, I found myself doing a few extra legs I had no choice in doing. The good news was, one of my layovers happened to be in Philadelphia. I told her I’d be stopping there for some time and she instantly agreed to meet me at the airport since my layover was pretty lengthy. At the time, this friend was a good friend but we weren’t exceptionally close mostly because I distanced myself right before leaving and I knew she noticed in particular. But I was happy to meet her there, that’s for sure. My plane ended up being much delayed and by the time everyone was off the plane, I really only had time to run to my next flight. This friend waited sitting in the airport for a good few hours, met me, then walked me to my next gate and saw me for maybe 15-20 minutes in total. I think she even bought me food if my memory serves me correctly. I was so touched by this one particular moment, that this friend of mine was no longer a good friend to me. She was now a best friend. I myself would have probably left and told her sorry and had she done that in our case I wouldn’t have thought twice about it! But she never did that and she patiently waited after being there for such a long time. I know this sounds trivial but it’s not. It’s these sorts of things though which might seem small but hit me very hard and touch me as I find acts like this more valuable and endearing than anything. It made me realize I want such dedicated friends like this in my life, the ones where even a few minutes of hanging out is worth it. Today, we talk every day and after that particular day, we became closer than anything. She lives in another city now. My life would not be the same without her. I’ve known her over 10 years now and love her to pieces.
It was almost 3 years ago and I was going through some rough times with a particular person in my life. The person was the exact opposite of dedicated, loyal, good for me, I mean you name it. It was one of my accidental brain disappearing acts which thankfully are rare, as normally I just know better. Well, one of my most favorite people to talk to when it comes to helping me understand myself is a good friend (and fellow Aquarian I must point out) who I’ve also known for about 10 years now. Although I’ve lived in a different city and she moved to L.A for some time, we’ve always been able to reconnect and I enjoy her so much always. I really respect her advice and she’s one of those few people I’ve met who could not place judgments on her friends, even if she wanted to. She had a lot of reason to judge me at this time, too. This person who was very bad for me was not accepted by any of my friends and rightfully so. And while I was working through the motions of finally getting it all to sink in, a lot of my friends were frustrated with meand I didn’t want to burden them with such nonsense anymore, either. The broken record thing can be annoying at times, I didn’t blame them. But not this friend. She never gave up on repeating her views to me, on being there for me and with accepting me no matter what. We sat in the Belltown located Macrina Bakery for brunch one Sunday and the first thing she said when she saw me after months was “What happened, you’ve lost so much weight.” For me, my weight is a complete reflection of my emotional stability unfortunately, so my friends can usually tell how I’m doing by just looking at me. And she was right. I hadn’t weighed so little since when I was 13 years old. We started talking about my situation and I started giving her the updates when right there in the middle of the restaurant she bursted out in tears. There was a lot of commotion going on at the time, it was loud in there, and very busy since it was the peak time for weekenders to be brunching it up, but she did not care whatsoever. Naturally I began sobbing right there, and she held my hand and kept telling me it was going to be OK, everything was going to be OK. We sat there and just cried about it and this was a moment I realized that friends who can feel your pain this well and cry for you, without humility, and who could care less what other people think, was someone amazing and touching to me. To care so much… I just couldn’t even believe it. I was very touched by this particular moment and still remember this so well. Yes, I exited the demon shortly after.
I was living in my condo and a particular friend of mine knew something was wrong. She sat outside my place with her boyfriend in their car and called me. Repeatedly. I never picked up. They stayed for some time but I never answered my door. I had just found out some really bad news that particular day and while I honestly didn’t even hear her there, catching up on my text messages and voicemails hours later, I realized the efforts she had gone through on nothing more than a gut feeling. She just suspected something was wrong and came over immediately to check on me. I got an ear full of lecturing later on that day for freaking her out, but she quickly forgave me and her and her boyfriend came back to Seattle and we went and saw a movie together J. Another time, this same friend and I hadn’t talked for weeks as we tend to be busy girls. Out of nowhere she called me one day again, on a suspicion something was wrong. It couldn’t have been better timing. I really needed her at that moment and within 30 minutes things were just fine. But once again, all on her gut feel. I’ve dragged this poor girl out of bed at 1am, texting her about a date which I was on and how it was going horribly and if she could come and rescue me I’d appreciate it. I think I was mostly joking about her coming out to rescue me but low and behold, she showed up. Bed hair and all. I really treasure this friend because by first glance she’s not the kind of friend you would pin as having the time or energy for friends, as bad as that sounds. She’s an incredibly busy woman with a lot of demands in her life yet her care and concern for her friendships goes unmeasured. Her heart is ginormous and it’s bigger than I’m even describing here. But anytime she comes to me about anything at all, I feel I owe her so much for being so in tuned with me, for having these gut feels that even I am always shocked to hear about. We are very well connected I have to say and I just love her so much for it! That’s a best friend for ya.
Last story…as I could go on forever. I’m actually feeling very lucky right now as I’m very reminiscent about such moments and people in my life though these are just a few acts of kindness I’m talking about. The list is much longer than these examples. I was pretty stressed out at work one night. It was midnight and this friend called me to see how things were going. I told him I was stressed but needed to go home. He didn’t live near, in fact he lived sort of far and I lived in Seattle so not exactly close to Redmond myself. An hour later he showed up at work just to drive me home. He told me he felt I shouldn’t be driving as I was so tired and simply wanted to get me out of there. Another time, I had not talked to this friend for some time and was in my withdrawal distant mode I tend to hibernate into when stressed about something. He called me one night and told me he was on his way to come pick me up. I resisted but well, he showed up. He took me to the movies, did not say a word to me, dropped me off and said “I hope that whatever is wrong, you were at least somewhat distracted tonight.” And I was. I thanked for doing this before getting out of his car, as it was such an act of kindness where I was not expected to do or say anything, to even explain myself, but someone cared enough to know I just needed a distraction, not knowing any details as to why. I’m sure at some point I volunteered the information about what was wrong as this particular friend is now my ‘accessory’. If you don’t know what that means read December’s blog. To this day, he takes such good care of me and although he’s my accessory, he makes such a wonderful friend to me as well which I’ll never be ungrateful for.
I can go on and on with examples of how there are some people in my life who’ve really touched and impacted me. Family is one thing, friends are another. Friends have no real obligation in the same way as family, but when the friendship is that kind, that there for you, that in-tuned with you, these are the moments which stand out in my head as being best friends vs. good friends. Unfortunately my examples draw upon situations where I was having bad moments and my friends came to the rescue, but that my friends, is the difference. Any friend can be a friend and you can have fun with and be jolly good old pals with, liking the same things, hanging out and celebrating all the good in life with you… but how many friends know your heart and know you better than you know yourself at times? How many of them know but also do something about it? How many can be there when the going really gets rough and care so much to help you through it? Who is going to wait hours in an airport just for you to switch planes, or cry for you unashamed right there in public because they are hurting for you, or wait outside your condo because their gut tells them something is not right, or get out of bed to drive you home from work at night because they know you won’t leave otherwise? I treasure and value all my friends but these are the friends who I’ll hold close to my heart always. They’re stuck with me, and I am constantly working to return all the wonderful favors and show them my gratitude, dedication and faithfulness by being the exact way back to them. It’s an unconditional love and we expect nothing in return from each other.
These are my angels.
Posted by tanya 
