One time in high school, after a friend got mad at me because her bestie asked me to be her lab partner instead of her, I was feeling a little down. We had a motivational speaker come to our school a few days later and it really made me feel better, along with everyone else who was required to see him in third period. So much so, that we all stuck around after his speech to thank him. Afterwards, a "friend" I confided in about the lab partner issue told me if I acted as fun and giggly as I did after that motivational speech, I would have no problems finding new friends or keeping old ones. In hindsight, that person wasn't really my friend and turned out to be mad at me because I wasn't HER lab partner (gotta love high school, right?) but it got me down again.
Fast-forward to now, way too many years removed from high school for things like this to matter. I was also recently given tips on how to make friends. Obviously, I now know that true friends don't do that. I also know that life is too short to even care about what other people think. I'm usually good about letting things roll off my back but sometimes it's just a little harder.
It's funny though, I randomly thought about this incident from back in the day, which made be think about the recent situation, not the other way around. I guess that shows that I didn't care as much as I thought I did. Definitely a good thing.
It's also awesome that this silliness has made me realize something in my old age (oh, yes, I'm getting there folks): It truly is about the quality of friends, not the quantity. And in an odd and twisted way, actually realizing it (not just thinking about it) kinda makes me want to shout out "THANK YOU!" to all that made me believe it this year - either through being amazing friends or, um, "other".
This isn't just a silver lining, folks, it's a gold pair of shoes!
