In life - we meet so many different types of people, and we make so many different types of friends. I happen to be lucky enough to have all of the best kinds of friends in the world. If you're lucky, you can pick out these 11 wonderful people in your life:
1. The one who makes you feel complete.
Because everybody has that one best friend. Since the 6th grade, I've had the same wonderful best friend who I've been able to grow with for nearly ten years. We've had this bad habit of trying to protect each other by minimizing our own pain. Once we were honest with ourselves, and with each other, we got to go through seasons of strife together. Every time we're around each other, there's an undeniable energy and an undeniable sense of a bond that will never be broken. She's the friend I somehow always end up at UNOs with, the friend you can send 56 texts to and feel no shame, and the friend you know will be around for a lifetime.
2. The one you call your person.
Because we all need somebody to lean on. I'm lucky to have a person who inspires me every single day. If you have a friend that you can look up to - you're lucky. My person is patient with all of the craziness I throw at her with my own decisions, encourages me to be my best even if I'm feeling the worst, and my person is someone who never lets me forget all the good that there is in me. We all need a selfless, loving person on our team. She's the friend who always knows the perfect things to say, the friend who is older and wiser, the friend you can ask to pray for you, and the friend you know will never let you down.
3. The one you met through your job.
Because not all of us completely hate our co-workers. Somehow, someway, I struck a friendship with a coworker that worked at my job for a year and I never even knew. Before I knew it - we were screwing with our schedules to make sure we got shifts together, telling each other all about our lives, texting all day, having wine nights and Applebee's dates, and she may even turn me into a hugger. She's the friend who loves everything Disney (like me), the friend who used to want to be an X-Men (like me), the friend who used to be the kid with asthma (like me), and the friend you have entirely too much in common with. My "work bestie" is the kind of friend who makes you constantly wish you had met them sooner.
4. The one you should have befriended sooner.
Because there are always those social groups where everybody is cordial but not necessarily friends. I hung in the same circle as this girl for nearly two years - but until recently, we didn't have much of a relationship at all. Now, you can find us helping each other love life every chance we get. She's the friend who has been through things that you'd never recognize from her smile, the one who loves the word margarita as much as I do, the friend who will scream along with me to songs that remind us of boys we are better off without, and the friend who never hesitates to remind me of my worth. In under six months, she became one of my favorite people on the planet - and I have grown to think the world of her.
5. The one who's the opposite sex.
Because every girl needs a guy best friend, and I'm sure every guy could use a great girl on their team too. My best guy pal hangs around in a group of guys that I adore - but he is my favorite. Male voices of reason are crucial when you are as over dramatic and unreasonable as I am sometimes. If only I could tell you all the times his wise advice to me was - "yeah, you probably should just take a nap". But he is a genuinely caring person, and it's nice to talk about my problems with someone who isn't genetically destined to despise the male population.
6. The one who is just as stubborn as you.
Because everybody has that friend they bump heads with way too often. There are times when we love each other so much that we actually get mad at each other for not treating ourselves with the amount of respect that we deserve. There are times when we just can't stand each other, and times when we can't get enough of each other. No matter what we agree or disagree on, though, I know she's going to bat for me good, bad, right, or wrong. When all the stars align, and we're matched with the exact same feelings about the exact same issue - we are a dynamic duo you don't want to cross.
7. The ones you can count on from a distance.
Because we all have those friends who move away. Whether they leave your hometown to go to college or leave your home state to start new lives - they venture off. But distance can never interrupt real friendships. I know I can send a text any day, anytime, about anything, and my friends at long distances will be there for me (regardless of the time zone differences). My long distance friends are the ones I go to when I need an opinion from a voice that doesn't weigh in on my life regularly. They are the sweetest, funniest, most loving souls that I feel so happy to have in my life.
8. The one who will ride or die for you.
Because we've all got that friend who rolls their eyes and smacks their lips while they dry your tears anyway. There's always a friend who is so different than you but still so understanding of who you are. I am sensitive, this friend of mine likes to consider herself heartless (she's not). As heartless as she tries to act, she spent every single day with me when I got my heartbroken a few years ago and thought my life was over. She made sure I was eating, made sure I was sleeping and made sure I was social - and she did it all without thinking twice about it. She's the athletic friend, who loves neglecting me during her sports season - but I know I'm the first person she's coming to see whenever she is home.
9. The one who is your voice of reason.
Because we all need that friend who helps you put things into perspective for you a little bit better. When I am irrational - she is my rationality. When I'm a raging psychopath, she is my straightjacket. And I do the same for her. She's the friend you want to punch in the face for being so tidy, so motivated, and so healthy, but the friend you wouldn't change for the world. She is balance. We all have those friends who are younger than us, who look up to us... but I bet they don't realize we look up to them, too.
10. The one with the legendary sense of humor.
Because who doesn't want a friend that reminds them of Kourtney Kardashian. There is funny, and then there is my friend Madison. She is next level. People are fooled by her beauty (she is gorgeous), but she is brilliantly witty, and she brightens up the ugliest, darkest situations with one sassy sentence. She is the friend who you get to watch grow into an amazing person more and more each year. Long ago I had my doubts, and before I knew her I'll admit I didn't expect much depth - I was wrong.
11. The one you've grown (up) with.
Because who doesn't have that friend that they used to take bike rides in the rain with? We've seen each other through every phase, good and bad, and somehow always remained friends. We all have that friend whose house you're walking into without knocking, whether she's home or not. We all have that friend whose family loves you like their own, who is more generous than many realize, and who you're happy to help discover their worth. She's a friend that praises me for my strength as if she is blind to her own. She's a friend that I'm happy to be stuck with (because our mothers aren't going to allow us to ever grow apart).
I've truly been blessed in my life with some of the greatest friends a girl could ever dream of having. Since high school, I've had the same group of girl friends that I've also been able to happily grow with all these years. We've grown in different directions, on different walks of life, in different places. So now, in my little niche, some beautiful souls stumbled in - and it turns out they are all the best type of friends that I never knew I needed.
