A Letter to the Supportive Friend

I want to start by saying “Thank You” you have always been there for me through thick and thin, I cannot express how much that means to me. Being a supportive friend is more than supporting my decisions, it’s not being afraid to cross boundaries into conversations and hard hitting topics that make me re-think my whole game plan, because you care about my well-being.

Being a supportive friend is more than that pat on the back after a bad day, its being honest and open in friendship and opening up to love. We’ve been friends for over ten years now and maybe that’s all it really takes to be supportive, is really investing time in each other. You took a risk to believe in me, when I struggle to believe in myself. You don’t become agitated by me blatantly ignoring your advice and then me confiding in you about really how stupid that idea really was. You were there when I wanted to go to college away and not be home every weekend, you were there when my heart had been shattered by a boy who I thought was the one, you’ve held my hand during some of the most darkest moments of my life with me worrying that we may not make it to the light at the end of the tunnel. But what makes you different from the others is, had we not made it to the end of the tunnel you would have been happy to be in darkness with me so that I didn’t have to be alone.

Maybe that is because you understand being alone, you seem to understand me in a way no one has. You supported me when I came home from college, You helped me when I came back home to adjust to life once again, You stood by me while I was extremely sick, and even stayed when I told you its Chronic and it would limit me and the activities I could do.

And that’s what a supportive friend does is they don’t limit you, because they believe you are limitless. You push me because you know I can succeed, You tell me I deserve the world because you think that I do. You listen because you care, you empathize because you feel my pain too, and all the while you never once belittle my actions or decisions. You don’t scream “I TOLD YOU SO” when it blows up in my face, you help me devise my next plan of action. You motivate me to work harder, to pursue my dreams, to be successful in whatever it is that I do regardless of your benefit.

Really the life lesson you have taught me is having a thousand friends isn’t a miracle, the miracle is to have a friend who will stand beside you when thousands are against you. Thank You for being that friend, and know that this applies equally to you. I will always hold your hand, no matter how high the flames get.

I love you.

“Friends are the angels who lift our feet when our own wings have trouble remembering how to fly”- Amy Koltz