California and Friendship

Winter Vacation

For Winter Break I traveled all over California, ranging from San Diego to San Francisco. It was a great break! The best dim sum I've had in my life is in San Francisco, the best Crepes I've had ever is in Long Beach, and my first upside down pineapple pancakes were in San Diego. A lot of time was spent partying and hanging out with friends from high school, college, and new friends that I made along the way. This vacation, spanning almost 3 weeks, rejuvenated my spirits, revitalized my passion towards life and love, showed me that there are amazing people everywhere and taught me a lot about friendship.


Friendship
Yes, they come in all types. People you can spend forever with, people you can spend days with, people you can handle for hours, and those that you limit to 20 minutes of conversation before it just naturally dies. For the longest time I always thought that being friends with someone meant that you could spend an infinite amount of time with them. hahaha. I was wrong. Here are a couple of viewpoints on friendship that I learned this winter break:

• People and friendships change. It's great when you can always hang out with the same people and talk about the same things as if time has never passed. However, when someone changes, so does the friendship. You can't expect your best friend of 8 years ago to stay the same after limited contact. Often, goals, interests, communication styles, and comfortableness levels change. At that point, your best option is to simply talk about how you've changed and see where your friendship is headed now.
  
• Friendships can't be forced. Forcing friendships is like forcing two tectonic plates to go against each other. The end result is a huge earthquake and long term damages, a result from the built up pressure of forcing the friendship together. Humans are probably never meant to be continuously forced into situations where they're unhappy. The more humans force the situation, the more bitter and resentful each person involved becomes, until in the end it all falls apart.
• Times heals a lot. Time probably doesn't heal all wounds, but it does some amazing work on fixing scars. Any disputes or resentments with friends just fade away, and *Bam* you're talking again like nothing happened, mostly because you don't care anymore about what did happen.