Friends Are Our First True Love

They say you’re lucky to have experienced true love once, but life has proven this wrong, because we often forget the first truest form of love that we experience. We have experienced love at its purest, a love that has not only looked out for us but stuck with us through thick and thin.

It’s commonly taught that true love can only be experienced with that one person who sets your world on fire, and yet we have grown up with the love of friends. This love is one that makes us better than who we are. It challenges us and pushes us out of our comfort zone, because whoever shows us that love knows we are capable of more than we believe we can do.

It’s only as we grow older that we learn that we experience such a love every day and we don’t even consider it. Friends are the ones who see us as we are—bruised, broken and scarred—but they love us endlessly and unconditionally. They pick us up, dust us off, and love us even at our darkest. They tell us truths we don’t want to hear, but that just proves to us just how much they love us, even when it seems like we’ve failed them.

They don’t carry your burdens for you. They understand that it is not their role as a friend, and even though they might help carry you, they strive to show and remind you that you have the strength to carry any burden yourself. They never sugarcoat the realities of life to make you feel better, but they will never leave your side no matter how much you push them away. It’s the type of love that doesn’t look at your mistakes and stands up for you when no one else will. They love you even when it feels like no one else does. They stay when you tell them to go and hold you when you cry. This love is the type of love that means you can never stay mad at them for longer than a day.

The love you share is not measured by hours on the phone or pictures taken. What matters are the laughs, smiles, and late night talks. The tears shed over cups of tea. The times when you laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe. The cuddles, takeaways, and trips together. These are the memories that make up for any picture. The moments that remind you of how much love someone can hold for you even if they are not “the one.”

So thank God every day and thank them that they gave you the chance to have experienced a love that changed you so much. Your partner, whoever they are, might be your last love, but your best friend will always be your first love.