“Would you jump off a bridge if he did?”
This is a question that our parents tend to ask when we are about to do something just because someone else did. They think we should create our own paths and be our own people. But what if the things we were doing because of others is the path we choose? What if we choose to march because the people we care about are? What if we just want to support the people we care about by being with them? These are things they don’t think about when looking at our choices. They always think we’re doing it for attention or because of how we perceive people. But they’re wrong.
The support that we want to give each other is unimaginable.. They never had friendships like the ones we have. Our version of friendship looks like giving someone half your lunch because they’re mom didn’t pack them one and then packing extra for them from then on out. Our version of friendship looks like telling them that they’re always welcome at our homes because we know they have it rough. The things we go out of our way to do aren’t one time. We see what’s happening with our friends and make sure they know we’re providing them with different options. The love and compassion that we show our friends is almost as much as we show for our siblings, sometimes more. This is something that we all expect from friendships.
We expect a lot from our friends because we want healthy relationships with the people we care about. The idea that friends could just leave you during a hard time isn’t something we tolerate. We pick friends carefully so that we can assure their support.
Support is a word used a lot in a conversation about friendship. But what exactly does that mean? Support means they’ll hold you up when you’re down regardless of how it makes them look. For example, if you’re having a really rough day and you start crying in class, they’ll comfort you regardless of how everyone in class is looking at you. They don’t care what everyone else thinks. If everyone else thinks you’re weird, they won’t care because they like that about you. They’ll cry with you whenever you’re hurt, and laugh at your stupid jokes even though they definitely aren’t funny.
These are the people we lean on, and this is what friendship means to us. So yes, I would jump off the bridge if my friend did. Because that’s what friends are for.
