A Few Times My Friends Had My Back

Today is Karly’s birthday and for those of you who have been following my blog for any length of time or know anything about our friendship, you would know we are super close. Karly is like a sister to me but it has not always been easy an easy road because people have tried to tear us apart and we don’t always see eye to eye on things. Obviously, we don’t pay too much attention to some of the hurtful things people have said to us and it’s a good thing we don’t because it could have ended our friendship. I have had many friends come and go but no one has ever made me feel the way Karly has. Most of them have made me feel pretty bad about myself and extremely self-conscious and to have a friend like Karly I consider myself lucky because they are hard to come by. In honor of Karly’s birthday I am going to talk about a few times I felt a lot of love and support in our friendship.

When our friendship tried to be destroyed–  I will never forget the day I got in a disagreement with another friend of mine but instead of trying to work it out she thought it would be a fabulous idea to message Karly(along with all my other friends) saying how much of a horrible person I was. Karly and I are very close and it would be very hard to break us apart and if you attempt this the first thing Karly will do is contact me which is what she did in this situation. I explained to her what happened and she understood so we both forgot about it and moved on. I was very upset that someone would even try to break apart my friendships but grateful I build strong relationships and that my friends trust that I wouldn’t do the horrible things I am accused of. I would have been crushed if that planned worked because Karly is my only friend and I would have no friends and to take away the one good friend I have because your angry is something I don’t know if I could move past. It is okay to be angry with someone but to try and break apart the friendships they have with others is wrong and there is no excuse for it.

When Karly visited me in the hospital- I have had many surgeries and one of the things that mean a lot to me when I need surgery is when people acknowledge it and let me know that they are thinking of me. It does not have the same effect when my mom delivers get well messages when I am recovering than if someone reached out to me themselves. I always remember everyone who visits me when I am recovering and people who know I am having surgery but chose not to acknowledge it and let me tell you it hurts!  Karly can’t always visit me when I am recovering from surgery and that is okay I don’t expect her to but she always knows about my planned surgeries before they hit social media because it is important your friends don’t find out that way. Recovering from surgery can be hard for anyone and Karly knows that so to help relieve some of my stress and anxiety while I am recovering she always checks up on me and we talk a lot because it can get boring when all you can do is watch television.  There was one time Karly was able to visit me when I was in the hospital recovering from a bladder surgery I believe and she brought me one of my favorite snacks which were barbeque chips and that made my day.

When I become depressed- Imagine having no pain but then one day you have pain every day that affects everything you do and the only way to control it is to give up things you love. I have a high tolerance for pain but what I am not used to is constant pain and when I started having chronic pain I become very depressed almost to the point where I didn’t want to live anymore.  Let me be clear I have never planned or attempted to take my life and if you are in that place I highly encourage you to get help from a mental health professional. I struggled with dark thoughts and seeing the purpose in life but nothing more. When I was going through that time I was angry and did a lot of ranting to Karly but it was not about any person but I was angrier about my chronic pain and me blaming myself for having it. Having no pain and then one day being in pain all the time was a major shock for me and until I got my pain under control I was not a fun person to be around. It took a while before we found a medication that controlled my chronic pain and for a good year(maybe longer) Karly put up with these rants. I am happy she did and didn’t go crazy because I don’t know what I would have done if she stopped listening to me.

Supported my bad friendship decisions- I went many years and was in relationships with friends that were toxic and didn’t make me feel good about myself. Almost every day after talking to these people I would cry and go to Karly for advice and almost every day she would give me the same advice which was to cut these people out of my life. This was great advice but because I was so afraid of walking away from a long term friendship and not having friends I didn’t listen and was willing to be miserable because of it.  Karly still supported my bad friendship decisions even though she didn’t think what I was doing was right and I could have easily gotten out of it. It was still my decision to make and if I wanted to be friends with someone that didn’t make me feel good about myself then that was my choice.   Eventually, I came around and realized that Karly is supporting in every way a friend can and I don’t need more friends that make me unhappy. What I have is something special which is hard to come by and I don’t need anyone else.

Happy Birthday, Karly, you deserve everything in this world and I hope you have a fantastic day! Indulge a little and have a lot of fun which I know you will because you are going to your favorite place of all time Disney! Make sure you indulge a little because calories you know that calories don’t count on your birthday. Who am I kidding indulge a lot because you turn 28 once. I hope your birthday is everything you could have ever wanted and more because you deserve everything in this world. You are everything anyone could ever want in a friend and your kindness, love, and support have meant everything to me these last ten years even if sometimes I have a funny way of showing it.  You have grown into this incredible independent disabled woman that has mastered the art of asking for help which I have not yet mastered. Here is to ten more years of friendship and I hope we get to see each other soon. Wow, that’s scary to say because in another ten years we both will be almost 40. It’s crazy that we have been friends for ten years and we have done so many fun things together so I can’t wait what the future holds what other memories we will make!