What I've Learned This Year: 2008

On the eve of the new year, which looks to be shaping up to be one of the greatest years of my life thus far, I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned. This year has taught me to look deeper into myself, and to use what I’m learning to improve myself

Probably the most important thing I’ve learned this year is about my friendships. I’ve always had great friends. I love to meet people, and I’ve never felt like I was without friends. Obviously relationships wax and wane, and grow and change and morph into other things, but I think each of the friendships I’ve had along the way has been of vital importance to my development of self. I used to think that friends were an external force in the directions my life has taken—an auxiliary piece of the puzzle, or something that happens as a result of choices and experiences I’m having on my own.

This year, though, I have come to realize that my friendships are inseparably entwined into my life—a part of my being that I can’t pull out and treat as a side item. I wouldn’t be who I am, or maybe even anyone at all, without my friends. And anyway, I wouldn’t want to be anyone without my friends—they make life interesting, and challenging, and more rich and broader and deeper.

I could go on for pages and pages about this subject, but in the interest of your sanity, internet, I’ve pared it down a bit to some of the things I think are most important about my friendships.

1. Part of the reason we like our friends is that we’re attracted to them. Sometimes it’s physical beauty—I have some friendships that started that way. I always wanted to be one of the “hot girls,” but since I usually end up as “the cute one that the boys talk to ABOUT the hot girls,” I’ll settle for being friends with said hot girls. It just so happens that the “hot girls” I know are also kind, generous, warm, adventuresome, carefree, and beyond compassionate for the people they hold dear. True beauties—inside and out.

The attraction to a friend can come from lots of places—intelligence, humor, skills (nun-chuck or otherwise), wit, or even sheer passion for life. We seek out in our true friends the things we feel we are lacking in ourselves, and that’s when we click—for lack of a less cheesy way to say it, we complete each other. I’m thankful for the ways my friends add to my life and my being, and I hope I do that for them.

2. True compatriots share in your experiences. Whether that means an activity you like to do together, or a common interest in something (from anime to new age spirituality to yoga to dogs to pop culture to knitting to drinking and laughing to contests that involve kicking one’s shoes as far as one can), or a moment you had together that binds you for life—not only shared experiences but shared desires. One of my dear friends admitted, a little bashfully, that she becomes a stalker when she meets new friends—tries to insert herself into their lives, because she can’t wait to become closer companions. I was able to tell her, after she related that story, that I stalked HER to become her friend—I wanted so badly to be able to call her a friend that I went to her desk at work every day under the guise of team-building, to endear myself to her. And it worked!

3. Having friends with different types and levels of experiences and lifestyles and attitudes and outlooks on life is vital to your survival. I am awed at how my friends have given me such perspective on my life—somehow I have managed to surround myself with people who not only can think through complicated topics, but can also put those thoughts into beautiful and meaningful words that speak to my soul. Whether it has been at a bar having beers, or at a cafeteria table at work, or in a pan-Asian restaurant drinking tea and eating tofu, or in a dive café after yoga class, or in a knitting circle, or in countless loving emails or notes, my friends have helped me to look at my life from a new vantage point. I am amazed at their collective ability for introspection and for pushing the edges of understanding to help me learn and come to terms with problems I face.

4. A friend really does love you, NO MATTER WHAT. As humans we define limits—for our own abilities and possibilities, for rational and technical and emotional and fantastical subjects, and for the amount of love we believe someone else can give us. I’ve learned this year that those people I love unconditionally and support without wavering during any situation actually feel the same way about me. A silly thing to suppose WASN’T true, but all the same…what an amazing feeling to be supported so selflessly by people I love and trust and admire. Thanks to ALL of you for proving to me what friendship really means.

So to all my friends—thanks for everything you’ve done this year: for me, with me, about me, and maybe even that helped me, even if you didn’t know you were doing it. I couldn’t have made it to the end of 2008 without all of you, and I hope you know it. You’re more important to me than these meager words can express, and I hope I can be for you one 100th of what you’ve meant to me this year. Best wishes for 2009 to each and every one of you.