Friends, Indeed.

So ever since I can remember I've always wanted to travel.

When I was very young I think I dreamed of the stereotypical places...New York, Paris, London.

Then I matured a bit and wanted to go to all of Europe.

In fact I dreamed that I would find this amazing job where I would do nothing but travel and meet beautiful new people (pretty sure my social skills were better then), eat all kinds of food, listen to music wildly different than American pop, and just in general get paid to be cool and have foreign experiences.

(On a side note, if anyone knows of such a job I can have my application ready in 2 minutes).

But the thing is (and this may shock some of you)...but this desire to travel has always made me resistant to putting down roots. In fact, you may even say to some degree I've been afraid of commitment...relationships, job, long term plans.

*GASP*

I know. Its definitely something I'm working on. Let's just keep in mind we're not all perfect. Me especially.

Anyhow, this kind of prevented me from having healthy friendships.

And I take all the responsibility for letting a few friendships that did go bad allow me to shrink back from people who really cared.

Like any other teenager, I tried to reach out to some people, put a lot of care and thought into relationships, and things went awry.

I blamed myself and drove myself almost crazy wondering what I had done instead of learning to forgive that person and forgive myself. I let hurt consume me to the point that I literally desired no social interactions in fear that I would get hurt again.

It's not until now when I look back at high school or thoroughly evaluate some of my mannerisms and characteristics that I realize that I'd let myself get offended, I'd allowed myself to get hurt, and that it caused this huge problem in my personality.

I'm fixing it. And I don't mean by withdrawing socially, or by "not letting people hurt me" in the sense that I act like a jerk or become my own self defense. But by realizing that I will have a multitude of opportunities to be hurt and to hurt others. And that I should pass on both.

Because we don't really always know the full story of what others are going through. And I can't control how people treat me, but I can control how I act to how other people treat me.

So I've decided that it is much better to not let a word misspoken or an action misinterpreted stick a knife inside of me. Forgiveness is the only option. Learning to love people and to stop fearing a negative outcome is something I'm going to have to learn.

But I know its worth it. Because I have some amazing people in my life who, no matter how many times I turned them down when they wanted me to hang out, no matter how joyless and unhappy I was, no matter how much we were polar opposites, they persisted, somehow made it over the walls of my heart and I've come to truly love them.

They've taught me so much. They've listened to me (and in some cases I'm pretty sure you could say that it was more like a therapy session than it was hanging out) and inspired me to be that persistent friend who disregards the 100 times you decline an offer. They saw through my sarcastic and super ego fronts and I tried to put up and uncovered a vulnerable broken person who had been carrying too much hurt and drinking too much poison in the form of bitterness towards people.

Here's the thing: people will let you down. Friends will too. I know I've let a lot of people down. But love them anyway. I'm thankful for the people in my life who have loved me regardless of my  extreme shyness, my lack of social skills, my resistance to investing into a relationship.

Like I said, I'm a work in progress. And this is definitely something I'm working on. Losing all the fear, all the bitterness, all the rejection. And learning to forgive and love and move on. Thanks to all those who have been so patient with me through it all :) Thank you for being a friend.