I don't know if words can truly express how lucky I feel to have people in my life who really get me and know me and will listen to me and to my problems (least of which is my chronic indecision) and provide reassurance and wisdom. There's something so special about these friends - not anyone who might be bound to me out of filial obligation - who are really the family I choose.
I was talking online with David (undoubtedly one of the aforementioned people) last night, and he mentioned how he felt closer with high school friends in general than with college friends, and this surprised me, considering how tight I know he is with his group at Pitt. But it makes sense, and for me, it applies as well. Like David, I feel that I am more myself with friends from high school. Whether it's because they knew me when I was an even bigger dork than I am now or because we've just been through so many years together (I once joked with David that if he had the facebook bumper sticker application, I'd send him this one) - years filled with fun and love and drama and just... everything. Excepting my mom, there are no people I trust more with my feelings, no people for whom I let my guard down as much. There are no people I'd go to before them with important news, no people with whom I feel more comfortable spending time.
It's true that I hope that the best is yet to come for me, that high school will not be my so-called glory days or the best years of my life, but at the same time, I do hope that the friends I made then stay right there with me when the best does come. The fact that our relationships are so unforced, that we can pick them up again after a semester or two apart, like no time has passed, is one of the greatest joys of my life. The effort from both sides involved in keeping these friendships alive is surely not absent - seen in a kind note here or there, an unexpected phone call or late-night IM session once in a while - but not nearly as much is required for these friends than those from college, say, to produce the same sense of closeness. Probably a result of having been around each other constantly for four years before we even met all these other people, the solidity of these high school relationships is so powerful that few that succeed them can ever hope to compete.
At least, that's the way it looks to me at this point in time, when high school is still a semi-fresh memory, and perhaps years from now, we will attend reunions and make nothing more than small talk with the very same people we once envisioned in our wedding parties. While I do have them in my life, I take great comfort in knowing that I have this network, small yet significant, to help me as I navigate through life's ups and downs, and it also heartens me to know that others consider me a part of theirs as well. In sharing a hometown, we have become to each other part of what makes that town home.
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