Friends…

Someone once said you cannot choose your family but you can choose your friends. And what a blessing that is.

Actually we don’t ‘technically’ choose from the word go. I don’t think any of us, when introduced to people, start thinking ”Hmmm this person is going to be my friend for life, let me just be acquaintances with this one or the extreme; I’m never gonna talk to this person again.“

I don’t think we do that, we are not built that way.

We let the interactions happen; we let the talks happen, and over a period of time we either become close to some of them or we drift apart. Atleast I don’t recall telling people I don’t wanna be your friend for so and so reason and you are not my type, that’s pretty mean isn’t it?

If I don’t gel with certain people or fit into a group of people, which according to my best friend and hubby dearest I always realize a little late, cause for my entire life I’ve strongly believed that people are always good at their heart, it’s the circumstances that make them behave the way they do. But at times I’ve been proved wrong and those are the occasions I have stumbled and fallen flat on my face in friendship. I’ve met people who are mean just for the sake of being mean and that I find mean!

Anyways, mostly on such occasions, I’ve quietly kept myself out of their way, and over time moved apart, such that neither do you nor they realize it!

I think we make a choice of whom to be with only after we have given the person enough chances. I’ve heard most people say that school friends last a lifetime; they are the true ones you make. I have a great school group too and we are in touch regularly, but I’ve made lots of special friends post my school life. Out of a girl’s school, I was pleasantly surprised at myself to have made the best of my friends among guys in my engineering college, who later in life turned out to be my best confidants.

Friends see each other through every phase in life, the school days, the college days, the messy career days, through heartbreaks, through crushes, through depressions and gloom, through joys and happiness, through choices one makes in life, through success and failure.

They add that special meaning to your life. Moments shared, the long chats, debates and arguments remain in memory forever, and you keep revisiting and reliving those whenever you get together.

I cannot imagine not having them around during the important occasions in my life. Not only those, but even the smallest happy moments in life. Their presence makes the most ordinary happenings extraordinary. That’s the magic they weave into one’s life.

You just don’t realize when you grow up together and become an integral part of each other’s life. Nothing is forced, it just happens, because you chose it that way :-)