by Rivs Aikman

Created on: July 20, 2010

My friendships are the most important thing in the world to me.  While I don't have a plethora of close friends, I do have a few friends who are closer to me than family, and I have a few family members that I also regard as friends.

My best friend in the world is a woman named Jen.  I met her through a poetry chatroom, and we bonded over the fact that we shared a birthday (she's exactly a year older than me) and some really painful parts in our pasts.  We even have the same build, natural hair color, and eye color.  She was born in California and I was born in Missouri, but I still like to joke that she is my real sister, and my real sister, who was born four months before Jen, was the baby that my family was given in Jen's place.  We both enjoyed writing free verse; though we were both skilled enough to write well in formal styles, we felt that our themes were better expressed in a freer form. 

Jen has been there to support me through my divorce and one abusive relationship after another, and I was there for her when things got rough with her husband (also a friend of mine and a brilliant, frustrating man).  She gave me the money to take a trip to meet the man who would become the source of the greatest joys and sorrows of my life.  Because of her, I was able to fall in love with a city I once hated and have the child that I had wanted all of my life.  When I became a single mother, she was there for me to support me as I dealt with my daughter's father and setbacks in my daughter's progress that broke my heart.

My other best friend is my mother.  I know that sounds incredibly corny, but as I've matured, I came to appreciate all that she had been through and all that she had sacrificed in order to make sure that we were fed, clothed, housed, and had at least some semblance of stability in our lives.  We both went through abuse as children, we both had painful divorces, we both struggled with abusive relationships, and we were both single parents.  My mother understands and relates to me both as my mother and my friend.

My best male friend is a gentleman named Ben.  We met on a dating site, and though we both decided that we had too much going on in our lives to be more than friends, so we're closer than family, and my family treats him as though he is an extra son. 

Another close male friend who is gaining my trust is a man named Alex.  He has a unique perspective on just about everything, and in spite of his background (which is extremely different from mine), he is able to relate to me, and I have come to trust him with some secrets that I haven't felt comfortable sharing with anyone else.  He is one of the few people in the world who listens to me without judging me, and he is a very gifted person.

While I do have several acquaintances, these four people are the ones who are closest to me, know me best, and have the honor og being called my truest friends.

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