Self-Care 101: Friendship Or Bust

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another ‘ What! You, too? I thought I was the only one.

– C.S. Lewis

I’ve long forgotten the name of my first friend, but I will always remember a few details: he had a black bowl cut and loved watching Ernest Scared Stupid. We were kindergartners, my mother knew his mother, and I needed a place to go after school, so I walked the block to his house (different times) to wait to be picked up. The carpet was reminiscent of a bear with a bad dye-job, a fluffy, interwoven mess in the den where we would lay and laugh. We ate puff cheetos and enjoyed a natural camaraderie that I’ve only experienced a handful of times since. I moved away not long after, but I can still remember the safety and comfort I felt all those years ago in that kid’s home watching Ernest movies.

Friendship can change your life in ways that other relationships likely never will, because our friends either stamp out insecurities, or create new ones, while giving us a sense of value that is damn near impossible to discover within ourselves. I can get overwhelmed in crowds, and detest small talk, but I love making true friends. Discovering in others the parts of myself I thought were too outrageous to be replicated is as liberating as it is a deep relief. To echo the words of C.S. Lewis above, those moments help to eradicate the misconception that I am all alone in this world. My friends – the people I trust with my vulnerability – are gold.

One of these golden nuggets, Jesse, recently sent me this video featuring the ultimate #FriendshipGoals couple – Oprah and Gayle. In this video they answer questions about friendship, expound on their own relationship, and offer solutions to problems which might arise in the course of a lifetime between two people who care for each other. Enjoy!