I am incredibly fortunate to be able to say that I have such a wide circle of friendship groups that are forever loyal to me, giving me never ending laughs, fun and memories. Whether those memories are distant from the years that have passed or slightly blurred from a few too many beverages, I know that those are the memories that I’ll look back on and remember how lucky I really am to have such wonderful people by my side.
Many of us are lucky enough to have a friendship that started budding from an early age. That particular friendship might have started by shutting yourself in a bedroom, dressing up in parent’s clothes and choreographing thorough dance routines. Or putting arm chair covers on your heads and pretending to be nuns. That friend you know pretty much everything about and you share your troubles with because you know any minute now, they’re going to crack out the good ice cream so you can drag someone else down with you in eating your feelings.
The friend that even though you haven’t known that long, you feel like you’ve known them your entire lifetime; the one who you can just look at them and burst into tears with laughter – literally. They’re the one person you know you could spend endless hours with and never not find something to laugh at, the one you could spend days with and not get bored of. The one that is pretty much your other half.
Then there’s of course the secret squirrel of the friends who knows your deepest and darkest secrets that you trust with your life. The friends that everything they say makes you laugh and the ones that you can’t quite believe how caring they are. The ones you can drink gallons of wine with, the ones that’ll pick you up of the floor afterwards. The ones that won’t walk away because they’re too embarrassed to be with you when you’ve fallen over too many times in the club, and of course the ones that know when it’s the right time for a hug. I could go on for hours and hours about them all.
I’m sure that a lot of people can relate when I say that I often find myself worrying about what is to come, but it is only recently that I have realised that it’s a waste of what is now. It’s of course impossible to never have a care in the world, and often not a great trait to have if you don’t care about anything at all. But I think that a lot of us can definitely afford to take a step back and appreciate what we have and accept that there are some things out of our control. With the right people beside you, you can get through anything. Your friends will know when to be a shoulder to cry on, when to bring the pizza round and know when it’s time to party hard.
By Connie O’Neill