(This post was originally written a few weeks ago and later adapted for a blog.)
After attending a conference last weekend and seeing a friend’s post on Instagram yesterday, I was thinking about how much I’ve missed several people who I’ve had the joy of meeting or getting to know better in recent months. It feels like I’m finally internalizing what it means to truly love a friend, just appreciating their presence in a more complete sense, being there for them without any consideration of reciprocity, seeing myself reflected in their eyes and learning what matters to me in the process.
Everyone exemplifies some part of the humanity we enjoy on this strange planet, beautiful by itself. But building a relationship with someone allows them (even unintentionally) to act as a mirror, reflecting a distortion of yourself filtered through their personality and the incidental nature of your interactions. This can highlight your own personality free of tired thought patterns: where you’ve come from, what you strive for, what you appreciate or reject about yourself, what you can become, what you love and seek in others, what you hope to avoid, how you view your life’s narrative. Some people are particularly incisive and reflective in a way suited to your personality, drawing you out of your comfort zone. When you’re lucky enough to find them, you seem a little closer to understanding what might give your life meaning. One day, you wake up and wonder what you did to be fortunate enough to cross paths with them, whether you can ever repay such a gift, and the lengths to which you would go to keep them close.