Expiration Dates

I've been battling a serious case of writers block. Every time I sit down to write I instantly become uninspired. You see, I'm not sad anymore. When I'm sad, I can write endlessly--metaphorically bleeding all over paper. I'm finally residing in this mental space that seems immune to emotional pain. With this newfound healthy space, I've been able to ask myself hard questions and entertain thoughts that continue to challenge a once unimageable personal growth in myself. I exercised these this past weekend on a beach trip with my best friend. Late Thursday night we took a walk down the beach and around the neighborhood. Exhaustion hit me in the middle of the street so we sat down, laid on our backs, and looked at the stars. I toyed with a plant between my feet and avoided eye contact with him as I somberly stated, "I think our friendship has an expiration date."

We've all been victims of ended friendships. At one point or another everyone has had a platonic friendship that ended. I know I have. I think back to elementary, middle, and high school and think about who I called my best friends during those seasons. Fortunately, the names were constant through elementary and high school with the exception of a few. But now, almost 6 years later, we don't consider ourselves best friends. Hell, we're hardly acquaintances. At 20 years old (now 24), this was the hardest pill to swallow. My life was going in an unbelievably different direction than my best friends. I was getting a divorce, enrolled in a secular college, and living independently in a new town. For almost a year, I lived 50 minutes away from Lancaster; home to me and home to my best friends. I didn't have my license at this time because of an unlucky streak of seizures; making it impossible for me to get to them. Of our five-cord group, only two came to visit me that whole year. Honestly, they left me forced to make new best friends. Fall 2016 was our expiration date.

The following night he asked me, "Halle, do you really think we have an expiration date?" I shrugged. In my head, I thought five years tops -- if we're lucky. I was judging this based on the resurfacing memories of my past best friendships. He continued, "I don't want that. That would make me really sad if that happened. Halle, you're my best friend." We take these roles as each others best friend very seriously treating our friendship like a responsibility keeping each others secrets swaddled inside us and throwing away keys that are never to be found. So, talking about not having that friendship is some scary shit.

Perhaps I'm too loose with the term "best friend" and that's why they seem to come and go. I had a novel idea to reference Urban Dictionaries definition of "best friend" and it's perhaps the most wholesome definition on their site. I'll paraphrase: A best friend is someone who can make you laugh on your bad days, who makes all the problems in life seem easy to overcome as long as you have them. Best friends help each other become better people.

I believe with my whole heart that I've found these friends. Almost weekly Zoe and I call each other in hysterical fits over nothing, ending each conversation like the last; "I can't believe you're my best friend. If we were ever not best friends, I'd probably die." Last night I stayed up until 1am watching five episodes of Stranger Things with my "college little brother." With a mouth full of off-brand peach rings he looked at me and said, "Halle, there are five people I've met in college that I know I'll be friends with forever and one of them is you." I'll tell ya what. It really isn't time that defines how much you can love a person or how soon is too soon to call them a best friend. In just 18 months I've met some of the most beautiful souls one could ever hope to meet who have given me memories to cherish and stories to tell. But realistically, some of those friendships will have expiration dates because they just aren't bound in the same way. Sometimes I live in fear of expiration dates, that maybe in my friendships we walk around with "best if used by..." stickers on our foreheads. I fear that sometimes they may grow out of me. But that's not what best friends do. Best friends cry, succeed, laugh, and go down together. Best friends means friends forever.

"And we all have that one person, whether it's a month from now or ten years from now, we'd go back to. Cause at the end of the day they're the one whose arms always felt most like home."