Ode to Friendship

  This past weekend I took a trip to Tuscaloosa. My best friend graduated from college and our entire friend circle was there to celebrate and support her in this milestone. While graduating from college is great and all I learned this weekend that a degree doesn't hold all of the answers to life. 

   That little slip of paper won't tell me where to go to apply for jobs. It won't show me my future husband (God willing there is one), and it sure as hell won't help me make decisions. That piece of paper will be framed and hung in my house. Where it will collect dust until I'm too old for it to matter any more and take it down. 

   

   

    If the world ends Friday I will have spent my ENTIRE life in school. Sixteen years of school, SIXTEEN years of school! For a damn piece of paper that won't even pick out my clothes in the morning, which is the hardest part of my day. 

    Those sixteen years and that piece of paper represent something much greater than the degree I worked for. It is a symbol of triumph, and more than that friendship. 

    I realized as watched my friends dance and act a fool while we drank to our graduate that these people were the reason I survived the last sixteen years. While some are old friends, and some are new they all have been a part of life, and I knew that no piece of paper was ever going to mean more to me than this support group. 

   Without these people that paper would mean nothing. Who would I share it with? Who would help me celebrate. These people would help me look for jobs, a husband, and make my decisions if I let them. They would be there to cry on and vent to. They would give pep talks when I wanted nothing more to give up, and to scold me when my judgement failed. These people were sent to me by God, and the last sixteen years were meant to only refine our friendship. 

     Our lives might take us all to different corners of the country, but it will never take away our bond. This bond is one that can't be broken. Possibly because we know too much about each other, or maybe because it would take too much time to train new friends. But I have never been more sure than now that we will NEVER grow apart. 

DISCLAIMER: This post goes for those friends, who were in attendance and those of you who were not. It also goes for those friends who are relatively new additions into my life. I love you all. No, but seriously I love you.