Friends

And by friends I mean my friends, the people I choose to spend my time with, not the television show (although I do like that too, but that's for another post maybe!).

It might sound like a cliche, but without my friends I would not be who I am today. With my friends I've had the best times of my life, I met my boyfriend because of one of them and they make me amazingly happy.

My friends have always meant a lot to me. Probably as far back as when I started school. I've always been shy, when I was younger, I'd say I was painfully shy. But I was never short of friends. I've never had a lot of friends, but the ones I do have I'm close to.

At this moment in time I have two "groups" of friends. For the purpose of this post I'll called them my home friends, and my away friends.

My home friends are the group I spent all my time with in Sixth Form. We had some of the most amazing parties, nights out and a lot of laughs just sitting around in the Sixth Form social area at school. I'd say there's three of these girls I'm still quite close to (one more than the others, she gave birth to a baby boy last night and I couldn't be happier for her and her husband) and another five I still occasionally meet up with. But when we all get together we still have a great time. Unfortunately one of the girls I'm closest to now lives thousands of miles away in a place called Ascension Island. No ones can blame her for moving home, but every year she comes back to visit and we all try and persuade her to move back here again. And every year we get a little closer!

My away friends, as you may have guessed, live away from me. And I met them all online, on a forum for a cheesy boyband! This must be a good eight years ago now, maybe more. We're never sure of the exact date it started, but we have a lot to thank that certain boyband for. There's a group of five of us from this website that are very close. We try to meet up with each other in London or someones home town as much as possible, but it's getting harder and harder with everyone having full time jobs and boyfriends and babies! There's quite a few other people from this website too, some we meet up with when we can, there's even a few from Norway. I miss those four girls so much. They met up last Saturday but I couldn't make it because I already had plans, and I hate that.

A teacher said when I was in Sixth Form that you make the best friends you'll ever make during University. I don't agree with this. I made a few friends while there, but no one I was ever close to, or even keep in touch with.

And of course, there's my boyfriend, who I couldn't live without. I met him because of one of my home friends, and one of his friends (who happens to be the husband of my friend who just had the baby!) and I'll be forever thankful to them for that!

Basically, the reason why I love my friends so much is that they accept me for who I am, and they always have. None of them have ever tried to change me. They're there for me when I need them and have never let me down. It may sound harsh but if a friend can let you down, they're not a real friend. I miss the days of going out with my home friends every weekend, and meeting up with my away friends at least once a month.

Life changes, but whatever happens, I'll never lose touch with any of these friends, because without them, I wouldn't have a life.