As I’ve gone through various stages of my life, it is not a lie to say that I’ve experienced many difficult times. When I was younger, I thought I knew what friends meant: people who you played with and had fun with. This was what I viewed friendship as leading up to eighth grade, but when you transfer districts, it is likely that you will find that many people you were acquainted with by these standards were not real friends.

Alone in a new district, I found myself struggling to fit in socially, but I actually made my first friend by awkwardly stumbling towards this one peer and timidly muttering, “Hey, wanna be friends?”—and boom, my first acquaintance.

Since then, I’ve met many new people. I never really trusted others around me as friends and struggled with trusting people in general, but as time passed, the real impact of what friendship should have on my life began to reveal itself to me. 

As I experienced my years in high school, I met many new people who stuck with me through it all. When I had difficult thoughts, or retreated from hangouts, it was always those few friends that asked what was wrong, and then did something about it. 

No doubt, I played with and had fun with them, but the reasons I call them my friends are because I know for a fact that, despite whatever happens, we will always find a way to see each other through our struggles.

We raise each other up when we get knocked down and light the fuse to launch one another to better experiences in life. With people like this, you may find it difficult to see the hardships in life because you know that you will always have a place to fall back on if you need to.

Though it took nearly 14 years to find a true and genuine friend, I find it nonetheless worth every moment of waiting, because it is with this and the following friends that I have been able to experience so many new things I never would have even thought of.

I didn’t know going out nearly every week was so possible in high school. I didn’t know being open to meeting people was possible. I didn’t know being vulnerable with people other than myself was possible. I didn’t know there were genuinely caring people left in this world. 

I never had all of this, and maybe that could mean I was a loser, but if me being vulnerable was what brought out truth and life from people and gave way for a deeper connection and meaning, then I don’t regret a single bit of it.

This is what I am thankful for: a small but mighty community that galvanizes you in your journey throughout life—friends.