If Friends Were Flowers, I'd Pick You, as featured on the blog of Love, Lulu Mae

I seriously have the greatest friends in the world. Whenever I’m bummed about my job search or not being able to lose that last 5 pounds, I know exactly who I can call to make me feel all warm and fuzzy and sunny and happy all over again. I firmly believe in telling the people you love just how much you love them as often and in as many different ways as possible, and the same goes for when you are proud of people. People devote a great deal of time to doing this in childhood, but it seems to fade as people grow. There’s less whispered adoration between BFF’s, fewer dangly Friends Forever bracelets exchanged.

My friends are the kind of people that make me want to be a better person. They see me at my absolute worst and help me become my ultimate best. And although they are scattered all the way around the world right now, they are all pursuing their dreams all the way to the ends of the world, making something out nothing and becoming the people they had always hoped to be. And the thing about growing up is that you don't notice it happening until it has. And the people around you start getting married and having real jobs and doing everything in their power to make their dreams come true. And it's kind of beautiful how it sneaks up on you, whispers in your ear, enticing you to come forward, step out, be more, make those dreams happen.


Now, I'm not so sure how to make my dreams come true, but I know that there are people in my life, always so willing to help me figure it out, who know how to chase after the life they want with all the life they've been given. They light from inside and find bravery in the darkest corners of their hearts and stomp forward, with a smile, with a song, with a tiny pirouette. Who remind me that I am brave enough to figure it out too, who keep me balanced when everything spins just a little too fast. Their dreams are big, their goals are mighty, and yet, with every little piece of my heart, I know that there is magnificence brewing, magic waiting to be sprung, lives to be touched by your beautiful, beautiful hearts. And it makes me want to be better. And it makes me happy. So very very happy.


But sometimes growing up means that the people you love the most have to leave you for a while. But distance can't change what someone means to you, what someone has meant to you. Goodbye is not always forever, and farewells don't have to be sad. Sometimes an ending is really just a beginning backwards, a step to something new and exciting. With a kiss and a tilt of the hat between letters and phone calls at 3 AM and emails, there's never a shortage of ways to say what needs to be said. And as for the people I'm really talking about here, I couldn't be prouder to love you from afar, see what magic you will work and be gloriously reunited when the time is right :)


Someone who is most likely much wiser than I am once said, “To the world, you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.” So, I challenge you, dear reader, to say thank you to someone who means the world to you today. Show them how much you love them. It will make your world (and the world at large) an infinitely better, brighter place.