Best Friend

I am banishing myself from using the phrase, "This is my best friend." I am doing so because I realize how that can make other people feel who care about you and love you a lot. I notice how it makes me feel when good friends use the phrase, and it has a way of making me feel like I am not as much of a priority as their best friend is. It also makes me feel like I am not qualified to be a "bestie" on their list, or just that I am inferior in some way to their "best friend." It is as if I have failed in some way to be so privileged as to be considered a best friend. Takes me back to days of the play ground, which, I might add, is childish. 

Now that I realize how childish it is to use the term "best friend," I decided that I should not use that phrase either. Why? Relationships evolve and we are never the same with someone as we were yesterday. A best friend puts expectations on another person, which is not healthy either. A best friend suggests to me that there is an insecurity in this person using this term for someone else because it implies neediness. It has a way of sounding like this person who is your best friend is your territory, and cannot be shared with anyone else. I'm leaving this crap back at the play ground where it belongs.

I have several great friends! I know awesome people. I love many people. Many friends love me. I have different, unique and equally great friends among the people in my life. Some I have known for many years of my life, others have entered into my life in my early adulthood. That's okay too. The friends who have entered later have been there for me in times that my childhood friends could not. My childhood friends have helped shape who I am today because of the times they have been there for me as a child that I will never forget.

And it is up to me to keep good relations with people I love and care about. I treat them all equally. I have needed them all for different reasons, and they have all served a purpose in my life that makes them just as important as another friend dear to my heart. I will not call anyone a best friend, except for my husband, ;-) which is completely appropriate. After all, is he not my biggest fan? He married me so a spouse for a best friend is a more appropriate term if it will be used at all. 

I love all my friends. I don't want any of them to feel lesser than someone else in my life. Love them all!