Portmantle

19 jan 25. 1:08pm

i have so many posts that i’ve started and not finished. i’m gonna make this one a lil impefect in terms of grammar and english, but i’m really putting my heart into it.

i adore friendship with my whole heart and soul. it is literally the reason for my existence, the thing that brings me the most joy in life, the thing that makes me look back on my life and realize how fortunate i am. i have never taken a single friendship i’ve ever had for granted. i have never had the regret of wishing i could go back in time and appreciate a friendship more. i am so fucking head over heels, obsessed, in love with my friends.

lately, something that’s been on my mind is that i’m a bit insecure about myself. sometimes i think i’m stupid or not hard working or that i just don’t have my shit together. but i think there’s also truly something to be said about how you’re personality is a mixture of the 5 people who are closest to you. and its not just a saying but i think in life, people just gravitate toward people with similar interests and ways of life and general vibes, you know?

i think about the friends that i have and oh my god they are so smart. my best friend is a computer engineer. my childhood friend that i have been close with since the 5th grade is in law school. my sister is in dental school. my other best friend graduated a year and a half early from a UC with a dual degree. everyone else in my friend group is so absolutely smart, especially in their own fields. a lot of them are pursuing entertainment and creative fields and they are so fucking smart and achieving in their fields.

and when i hear us out talking at dinner, i think there’s a certain level of intellectualism and culture that is really there. and we’re not pretentious or competitive or even people who romanticize the grind all that much. but its kinda just in the tiny things where we have such GOOOD discussions that really make me see life in entirely new ways and they say things that are so emotionally intelligent without being overly obnoxious and pretending that they’re therapists. we watch stupid little trivia games and we try to guess the answers. we bond over the New York Times games. we talk about the books we want to write, and they aren’t the next great american novel, they’re books about our grandparents or our own lives or just funny little stories. we talk about movies that we’ve seen and songs that we like and art that we’ve seen. we can talk about what happened in the news and our favorite romcoms and politics and animals and history and makeup routines and just anything.

but there’s something there that is so unique and so intelligent, even if we’re talking about stupid topics, you know? like i feel like they’re so well-researched about the things that they love and then they share their opinions with the lenses that they’ve gained from loving what they love, and then we all have these different interests and we’re all always talking, and now we all know so much about each other’s fields and we can talk with such knowledge of such different things. maybe i’m being pretentious now and over intellectualizing it. i think it’s just hard for me to describe on paper without sounding like an asshole haha.

but i guess what i’m trying to say is that it’s hard to have imposter syndrome in a group like that. i think sometimes that i’m falling behind in life or that i’m not as smart as everyone else, but i think there’s something to have about warm discussions that stimulate your brain in ways that just really captivate and engage you. and i think to have friends this smart and amazing, you have to be smart and amazing yourself. and it isn’t because of an exclusivity or anything like that, its because you contribute to the friend group culture and people have a way of connecting with people who have a similar vibe for the big important things like morals and lifestyles and priorities but different vibes for interests and cultural things. because what makes friendships and relationships strong is that you can depend on each other for things and you can count that the time and effort you put into a relationship will be returned to you in excess, then you return it back in excess, and the cycle continues. and i think it’s like that with everything- the gifts you give, the intimate things you talk about, the facts you tell them, the way you build onto conversations so that they don’t stop and everyone stays interested, the time you spend.

my friends and i are hard workers but we’re in a bit of an era of grinding and being a lil bit broke or at least not as rich as we’d maybe wanna be haha. but there’s something to be said about the way we give to each others. one of my friends had a little release party for her EP a little over a year ago, and not one of us discussed with the others what we would give her as a congratulatory present. we didn’t even discuss that we’d get her a present at all. it’s a release party. i’m not sure if it’s really customary in the real world for give gifts for that kinda thing? maybe it is and i just think my friends are better than everyone else even if we are just a completely normal friend group haha. but every single one of us, without discussing it beforehand, gave her a little handmade gift. one of my friends made her themed coasters. i painted her a little canvas. someone made her a little succulent. someone baked. that’s the kinda friendship i’m talking about.

i wouldn’t be friends with someone who didn’t value friendship as deeply as i do because if i like someone, i am more than willing to go the extra mile for them, but i don’t want to be in a one sided relationships of only giving and never getting anything in return. not that i give only with the goal of getting something in return, but because we all just need a little love in return. and it sounds materialistic on paper, but i don’t mean just in material things. i mean that i wouldn’t change my whole schedule for someone who wouldn’t change their whole schedule for me. i wouldn’t stay out late on a work night just to comfort someone who wouldn’t do the same for me. it’s about time and effort and energy. and i think people love in different ways too, and i respect that too. like if i make a long drive to see any of my friends, then they usually pay for my dinner, or vice versa. it isn’t something that you should take notes on and make sure it’s completely 100% 50/50 every time. it’s just a feeling that this person cares and deserves my attention.

and that’s what i love so bad about friend group is that you’re really able to create that entirely new culture with its own norms and ideas. words you only use around each other. favors that you can rely on the other person saying yes to. going out to dinner and being a little bit loud but you’re used to it because it’s your friends and if they’re loud then it’s okay for you to be loud because you feel so safe in that little community that you don’t even care if the surrounding tables think that you’re being ~too loud~.

i think my friends are just so smart. so funny. so quick witted, so kind, so understanding, so honest, so strong, so brave, so fun, so interesting, so exciting, so hard working, so beautiful. and by all of these mutual properties of relationships, it means that they think the same thing about me, even if it’s not said in so many words or even labeled at all.

so yeah, i love my friends so bad.

and i think in times like these when i feel a bit insecure, it is a very nice reminder that i am loved by people that i love and respect and think very very very highly of.

i feel just such an immense love right now for them. i think i am so beyond lucky to have friends like this. it’s indescribable, it’s better than every drug. my friends are just my whole entire life. i’m so proud of them. i’m so so so so proud of them.