Friendship & Love

There was a Thought Catalog article posted recently about being able to tell when somebody really loves you. Reading this, of course, had me thinking about all of the things people have done over the years that show a true love within the friendship or relationship. To name a few:
- Rearranging her schedule to accompany me to a doctor's appointment that I was absolutely terrified of going into
- Flying across an ocean to see me
- Answering a tearful phone or Skype call, and speaking for over an hour
- Holding my hair back when alcohol got the best of me
- Sharing Netflix, beer, and a sleeping area with me
- Comforting me when I walk into work crying
- Showing me that bikini waxes don't hurt as much as I actually thought they did, by letting me be in the room with her during hers
- Cuddling with me, even when there was unfinished homework
- Messaging me, despite a nearly 5,000 mile physical distance between us
- Holding my hand during one of the hardest periods in my life I had to go through
- Encouraging me to pursue my dreams, even if it means being away and partially out of contact for stretches of time
- Noticing the little things that I say or do that mean that I am not okay

So what do all of these things have to do with traveling?

In a sense, these are the things that both compel me forward and hold me back. They hold me back and keep me here, because who wants to give up something this amazing? I have wonderful friends who love me for who I am, and how do I know they will still be here when I get back from traveling? Also because of these things. Because anybody who shows this much love, this much feeling towards someone, doesn't just let them fall out of their life. They may drift, but they wait patiently for the moment when the person may need them again.

All of the people described above are all special to me. They enrich my life. And some of them, I've gone for months without talking to, and still consider them a best friend, because of what we share.

Friendship and love are not about how much you see somebody, but about the feeling between you two. It's an unspoken, almost indescribable feeling of fullness between two people. Fullness that overflows into the space between you, whether it be a centimeter or one hundred thousands miles. Fullness that sits in silence, content to just exist. Fullness that envelops the unkind words spoken in anger, and shatters them. Fullness in the knowledge that, though the space may be empty, the love still exists.