When I started to grow up and drifted away from being the toddler that everyone doted on, I started my education at a nursery. I was in a class with about thirty other children, and as soon as I walked through that door, I treated them like family. It was what I'd always known. Throughout the years, I grew more and moved up through the school years, but I was always surrounded by a large group of friends and a large family back home.
Then I got to high school, and my family relationships started to break down, not just between me and certain members but between each other. I didn't realise how much I relied on them all, but I realised pretty quickly that I needed to do something else and find someone else to depend on. I gave up on most of my family ties, and leant on my friends instead, who became the most important people to me in the entire world. I value some of them higher than my own blood relatives, but at the end of the day, what does blood really mean?
Even now, I'm still surrounded by this huge group of friends. It's not just that I have a few friends and then their friends come and sit with us too - I actually maintain a good relationship with all of the people in my little/medium-sized group. They're my family, they're the people I rely on.
I've never really thought about why though. I mean, I know I rely on them so much because my family let me down before and I don't speak to most of them anymore, but I didn't really know why I surrounded myself with so many friends, up until now anyway.
I'm one of those people that values friendship above all other relationships, and I learnt that the hard way. Friendship means trust, loyalty and support, values that I know are lost and alien to some people. I need people to rely on and I like knowing that at least one person will be there for me at any point in my life. I like knowing that even when I feel like I'm completely alone and separate from everyone in the entire world, I'll find someone in my friendship group that feels the exact same way that I do. It's like a lifeline, and for most other people, it is. It's reassuring. It means you're not the only one, that it's okay that you don't feel okay. It means you've found someone to rely on, who knows how you're feeling and who won't patronise you or fob you off with some half-hearted cliched advice because they've had all of the same conversations you have.
It means you've found a friend, and (to put it in the words of Rubeus Hagrid) 'a thumping good'un I'd wager'.
When I'm 'in need', I know I'll have someone there for me, somewhere and that kind of feeling is one that I never want to lose.
