The Friend

I do not have very fond memories of my childhood, but I recall during holidays and festivities I would often seek out the company of my friends, and even run after them literally begging them for company. A lot of times they would budge, and mostly they wouldn’t, a reason I fail to understand to date. 

Anyway, the point is in all those cases my mother would say that I gotta create my own world, and spend my time wisely without depending on anyone. According to her, some alternatives would mostly be either doing something creative, reading, gardening or anything that could keep me occupied. 

Those days I would never subscribe to her thoughts and always felt the concept of building my own world was kind of absurd, I mean come on, how could you compare spending quality time with friends versus monotonous things like gardening, reading, etc? Having said that I failed to realise when all the radicalism gave way and I started taking my mom’s advice very seriously. 

Well,  have to say that building my world with books, writeups and creativity had its own share of goodness. It built me up, made me smarter, and increased my vocabulary, yet as they say every good thing comes with its own downsides as well. In my case, the downside was that I had become so independent and began enjoying my own company so much that I then found it difficult to make friends. 

And that practice continues even today as a thirty-one-year-old, I still struggle to make friends, however, I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by people who are caring, they check up on me, share their secrets with me, and I try and give them solutions if I am in a place to give them one. 

However, there is this void that I experience within me from time to time, sometimes I feel like wailing loudly for no reason, I crave companionship in certain circumstances, and sometimes there are certain outbursts of emotions, so much so that I feel like calling people up randomly and sharing my problems. 

Truth be told, I did try sometimes only to be backstabbed later, but I don’t regret or complain about any of that, perhaps some people are not supposed to express their emotions I guess. But I had to get out of the mess, I did not want to live there anymore. I then turned towards my shrine one fine day. 

The shrine my mother cares for deeply, and I do too. I don’t know if it is some kind of ploy but I can say that in the shrine I could see all the faces of the Lord light up when I tried talking - and ever since that day I made it a habit to communicate there very frequently. Sure, I don’t get a response back from there immediately but I feel like that is the best thing that has ever happened to me. 

Not relying on anyone at the same time depending on the most important being. In Him, I find my refuge, discover my solace, and in Him, I find my friend. Now, when my mother asks me to visit friends, go on trips with them, I say I have my friend for all of that.  The Friend!!!

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