An Ode To Best Friends

"My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me."

- Henry Ford

We all need friends to get on with life. So, if you are among the fortunate few who have been blessed with a special friend, hold on to that person and do not let them go. Love your best friend more than you love a lazy Sunday morning with breakfast in bed. Love them the way you love yourself and even more than your current romantic interest.

Love your best friend because they know everything about you and love you nonetheless. They know when you've had a lousy day judging by just your monosyllabic responses to text messages and they know how to put you in a better mood. They know what you really mean when you say "I'm fine" and they have their ways of actually getting the truth out of you. Love your best friend because they know all your secrets. They know the number of beats your heart is skipping despite your so-called successful attempt at maintaining a straight face and calm demeanor.

Love your best friend because without them, you probably wouldn't be the person you are. Life has its knack of giving you bad times mixed with the good and you and your best friend would have been through a lot together. Your best friend cheered louder than you when you got your first job. Every time your heart broke, they were there to glue the shattered pieces back together.

Love your best friend even when you are mad at them. Love them even if you want to hate them for cancelling plans last minute or for not spending enough time with you. Instead of cheering you up, even if they made you more miserable, love them anyway for you cannot imagine your life without them. After all, they are also human and they can be allowed to make some mistakes. And if they are your best friend, they will obviously fix their goof-up later.

It's not enough to just love them. You must tell them that you love them! Even when the two of you have had a fight, tell them you love them so that they know the extent to which they are valued in your life. It isn't easy but sometimes the relationship is more important than what's right and wrong. Love them even if they never say it back to you. Expression is not always their strongest cup of tea.

Thank your best friend. Thank them for tolerating you despite your extreme mood-swings. Thank them for bearing with you when you've been exceptionally quiet and distracted. Thank them for supporting you and abiding by your rules even when you have been unreasonable. Thank them for being themselves around you and thank them for believing in the best of you. It is because of them that you have learnt so much about  yourself. Thank them not just for being there for you but for also loving you just as much.

You

Waking up early has never been my cup of tea yet I look forward to mornings because they remind me that darkness never remains forever; ultimately, new opportunities will present themselves for us to rectify our mistakes, learn from our experiences, and move forward in life. You make me feel like I have endless mornings. Even if I have messed up real bad the previous day, with you in my life, I feel I still have a chance to set things right when I wake up the next morning.

None of us are perfect and we are all eternally struggling to ensure our virtues outweigh our flaws; but with you in my world, I feel as if I am already a very good person; all I need to do is strive to get better.

We all have our moments of doubt. At some point or the other, we've all felt that our lives are getting destroyed beyond recognition and there is nothing we can do about it. With you in my life, things seem more tolerable than they actually might be. I feel that even if my life crumpled to bits, I can stay strong knowing that I have it in me to fix what's broken. Your belief in me makes me feel invincible even in my weak moments.

Sometimes I wish I could find that special someone for you who would be your perfect match and complete you. I often find myself pondering that there must be someone out there who deserves you more than I do and who can give you all that I cannot. The pure love you exude often makes me question things around me. All my life, I have been conditioned to believe that good things do not fall out of thin air and if you want something, be it affection, care, money, or any material good, you need to work for it. Every day I wonder what is the reason behind the presence of your love in my life? What have I done to deserve it?

You make me so happy that it's almost frightening! Your love makes me want to be a more radiant version of me. It inspires me to look and think and act as best as I can. You make me feel secure enough to try new things without worrying about failure. I know you will love me anyway. With you in my life, I am not scared of spreading my wings and attempting a flight. Even if I fall, I know you will be there to catch me. I want to make you proud. I want to be worth all the trust and faith you have placed in me.

Gradually, with the passage of time, you have taught me how to accept things without thinking that I will have to pay for them. You have taught me that sometimes love can just arrive without any warning and even if you demand explanations, all questions you ask are irrelevant and, possibly, even unanswerable. Maybe love is just something that simply has to be received, embraced and accepted. There is really nothing else that a person can do about love once it has arrived at their door-step. Love is a privilege and what more can we do besides being grateful for its presence in our universe? 

I do not believe in a happily ever after. In future, our paths may drift or we could simply outgrow each other. There is also a chance that our love could just survive the test of time. I may not know whether our story has a fairy-tale ending or not but, just for today, I feel humbled to have known reality as wonderful as this and I shall eternally be thankful to you for this gratifying experience. 

Unspoken Words

He gazed at her in wonder as she scrunched her eyes, bursting into a fit of giggles. He was in awe of her ability to find humour in the toughest of situations. She caught him staring and suppressed her laughter.
"What are you thinking?" she demanded to know.
"Nothing," he said dismissively.
"Come on," she prodded. "There is something going on inside your head. I can see it on your face. Tell me what is it. Spill the beans!"
She could see a faint smile on his face that vanished almost as suddenly as it had appeared.
"It's impossible to hide anything from you!" he complained. "Let it go. It wasn't important."

She sighed. He never told her anything. In his defense, he felt the same way about her. She was unusually quiet these days. However, there was a big difference even in their respective silences. He never said anything despite her incessant questioning. He did not like having talks on trivial matters. She never spoke because he never really asked her anything. He believed if something was important, she would tell him on her own. Asking questions was too much of a hassle; especially because she had a knack for navigating her way around questions she did not want to answer.

He looked at her as she silently sipped her cup of coffee. She still looked as lovely as she did seven years ago. But the signs of transformation were clearly visible even to him, who, according to her, never paid attention to anything. He could see that her bright, sparkling eyes had lost their luster; her previously beaming face now looked crestfallen and her dazzling smile that at one point of time had lighted up many hearts now appeared broken and never reached her eyes.

He wondered if they had made the right decision. The picture no more looked perfect. Life was jumbled and both of them seemed to just be pecking on to live. Letting go of her was not easy for him. From the moment he had laid his eyes on her, he had found his world changing - it was as if the the earth inside him shifted as per the beats of her heart which had become its new gravity. Only good things had come his way since she had stepped into his life. He wished he could say the same for her. He did not know what she had gained by giving  up the comforts of her familiar world only to be with him. He knew he wanted her for his own selfish interests. He was not sure if he loved her - true love was supposed to be selfless, wasn't it?

She stared at him as he was lost in his world of thought. Judging by his expression, she knew he was once again occupying the room of doubt. She wished he could give up his obsession with perfection. They had been together since the last seven years. She had never cared for a person as much as she did for him. Just the thought of him was enough to generate a smile on her face. Yet she did not know if she loved him. She had read about love in novels and seen it in movies but she did not know if it existed in the real world. She was not sure if she would be living with him had she known what love truly was. Love, according to her, belonged to some unknown territory, of which she was no inhabitant. Love was free to go on its own journey - it could choose to settle down or roam around like a nomad. She had no intention of following the trail made by love. That was not why she had left her world behind.  She had done so not for love but for him - she belonged in his space and would only walk beside him on whatever path he chose for himself.

It did not seem to matter that these conversations always took place inside their heads. To each other, they said not a word yet everything that was there in their hearts was seemingly understood. He instinctively reached for her hand and clasped it tightly into his. She smiled and rested her head on his shoulders. Life was filled with challenges and presented new opportunities, each day, for them to question themselves and their choices. Right now, they had won this battle. But it was not the end for they still had miles to go before they reached the destination that was still unknown to them...