Friends

I'm a mixture of personal qualities and traits, as I’m sure we all are. The first few traits I tend to think when someone asks me about myself are: 

1) I love good jokes, comedy, humor, and laughing.

2) I am a huge fan of art in all of its forms (visual, auditory, performing, musical, etc.)

3) I am extremely loyal and selfless towards good friends who have always been there for me, through thick and thin.

Some of you may wonder why I mention my close friends before I mention my parents and family, and the reasons are quite straightforward: all of my family members who aren't my parents live a good distance away. Most of the time, I'll talk to and tell my friends more than I'll tell my parents. The son my parents know and the person my friends know are two distinct and considerably different people in certain ways. The "me" that my parents know is a quiet, mild mannered, almost timid kid who is pure in heart and personality. The "me" my close friends know? He's a very different story. That "me" is crazy and rambunctious at times, the life of our party at dances, having and has no shame in cracking some of the more provocative jokes and speaking his mind. Some of my best friends probably know the real me more than my parents do. 

This line between friends-me and parents-me has really never been crossed. I started testing the waters by sticking my toe into it when it comes to my dad, and it's gone relatively well. My mother? I've only ever crossed that line once, maybe twice in my life. The one time was during a short time frame after the accident, while I was still bedridden in the hospital. Apparently, I couldn't really move my left side. As in, it was semi paralyzed on that side; it even says so on my hospital report listing my injuries. My mouth was okay though, and some of the things that came out of it weren't exactly, how do I put it? Mild mannered or gentlemanlike? Apparently I swore like a sailor and was extremely aggressive (both physically and verbally) towards nurses if I felt any kind of pain or discomfort when they tried to move me. I had no filter whatsoever. Which made for quite the reveal and surprise for my parents. 

Should I be closer to my friends than my parents? Probably not. But hey, I'm not going to tell a lie to seem more "normal" and "proper". I'm not afraid of speaking my mind, remember? But there's no denying it; if friends treat me well, I'll get very close to them. I'll have no hesitation saying I love them. Albeit platonically in most cases, but I still love them. And I'm pretty confident the feeling is reciprocated in most if not all cases. I've been told that when I was in a coma, several of my closest friends came to visit me. Apparently, one of them (I won't give names in case they don't want anyone else to know besides my parents) visited me by herself and cried, even laying in my hospital bed and holding my hand even though I was out cold. After I awoke, even more friends came to visit me. So yah, I love my friends. They're amazing people in their own ways, and even though we can't really see each other anymore since some of them have gone off to out-of-state prestigious colleges, I still wish them all the absolute best in their future.