This I Believe

Okay, so in English this last week, my class was given the assignment to write about something that we beleive to be true. We were to expand on our belief with personal experiences. Well, my friends, after workign on this 3 page peice for nearly 4 hours, this is what I have come up with:

Loyalty: Friendship’s Foundation

My friends are awesome. We do all sorts of things together, and we are always there to help each other. We play anything from Ultimate Frisbee to Warcraft together, and we can joke about anything from our body odor to Colin Powell. I have known most of my friends for over half of my life; we have shared many a secret, and prevailed through many adventures. We have stayed up late many times, reminiscing old memories while forging new ones. My friends have had profound impact on my life. I being the only boy in my family, they have been the brothers that I never had.

But it hasn’t all been fun and games. We have gone through many trials and harsh words. Plans of mortal revenge have been on our minds at times, and in many cases, jealousy has been rampant. I have fumed over misdeeds and shed many a tear at the thought of offense. I have tossed and turned through many nights with the memory of our day’s disputes.

So I ask: why is it that we are still friends? How can we still be there for each other when so much strife has come of our relationships? The answer, dear reader, in one word, is loyalty.

My earliest memories with my dearest friends consist of sleepovers full of talk about girls and hours of our favorite video games. We spent those nights in our early Jr. High experience daring each other to ‘like’ a girl, or plotting ways we could get a certain girl to like us in return. When our minds weren’t directed toward the opposite sex, our eyes were fixed on television screens, our hands manipulating the game play with our controllers. We stayed up as long as we were allowed, and stayed awake as long as could beyond that point, once again directing our conversations where we could all relate.

Those were the good old days; the days where girls were our number one topic of discussion, not our number one concern. Those were the days when very little could upset us with one another. Our loyalties lay in our common interests alone. With no memories to bind us, we only had our childish fantasies and games to bring us together.

Those days didn’t last long. Our fantasies slowly became reality, and gradually, our developing friendship reached its first test of endurance; one of us actually got a girlfriend. A relationship kindled with one of us and an outside force, stretching our own bonds. Problems began to arise as our dear friend began drifting away from our circle of friendship toward the influence of another. Our frequent activities with each other became limited when our friend would rather be with ‘Her’ than us at certain times. Of course, it wasn’t his intention to abandon us, but he had new loyalties to attend to, and none of us could accept that, especially me.

Jealousy and anger changed our friendship into a relationship of hate and envy. This struggle lasted quite a while, until dastardly plots and deceit (all on my part) ended my friend’s first relationship with a girl. I had done mean things. I had hurt my friend, and the girl he had liked so much. When all was said and done, it would have made sense for him to never speak with me again, but somehow the opposite happened. We made up with each other, and though our trials, the friendship we had before that trial was strengthened enormously.

I look back on this experience today, and I wonder how we ever managed to forgive and forget such an ordeal. How did we ever look past what we had done to each other? How did we push it all aside and become even closer to one another? The only thing I can figure out is that through all the strife of that tribulation, we still had something. We still had the memories we had made. We still had our common interests. We still had our loyalty. Somehow the respect and the devotion we once had had for each other gave us all we needed to pull through. Our loyalties had been strengthened over the years by all the times we had spent together and memories we shared. In the end, our stronger binds and loyalties could not be hampered.

Since this experience a few years ago, my friends and I have gone through many more trials and times. We have helped each other though countless homework assignments and bad relationships. The loyalties we share are stronger than ever. We have made new friends along the way, many of whom are bound to us in the same way now. Our loyalties to them have been toughened and built up over the years, and the binding foundation of our friendship is ever getting stronger. The more trials we go through and the more memories we make, the deeper our cornerstones are dug, and the higher our walls are built.

Friends help determine the kind of person you will become. They make your memory full. Friendship is built from scratch, and fortified through time by the loyalties that bind us. Loyalty is the difference between a good friendship, and an everlasting one.

This I believe: Friendship built upon a loyal foundation is unbreakable. True friends are family. This I know, for my friends truly are the brothers that I never had.

So, there you have it. My heart-felt-inspirational-whatever-you-want-to-call-it. Hope you enjoyed it.