True friendship is easy to define, but rare. My pat answer to this is someone who would actually answer the phone at 4AM on a Tuesday and then proceed to pick me up in Bakersfield if my car died, but it’s much more complicated than that.

I’m not a very trusting person with good reason. There was a time when I was a little more open than I am now. Certain people abused this trust, ruining it for everyone else. Now, in order to be considered a friend of mine, you have to put in a lot of work.

There was a time when I thought, fuck it, I don’t need people in my life. All they bring is heartache and trouble. I can make it all on my own. I didn’t think I had a choice, but certain people wouldn’t allow it. They put in the work. They proved to me that they weren’t going anywhere. They showed me that I didn’t have to do it all myself.

Metaphorically, I have a series of great big, thick walls that keep me from really trusting people. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to make it through all of them, but once inside the inner sanctum, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I will put up with no end of shenanigans from the people I consider true friends. I would gladly give my life for them if need be. At the very least, I would give them a kidney. I have two of them anyway.

I can count on two hands the number of people in my life who I consider to be true friends and I am incredibly lucky to have them. I have the kind of friends that would do anything for me.

Last week, they heard I had a really bad week and forced themselves upon me whether I liked it or not. One of them held me up as I collapsed in a heap in her arms because my legs stopped working. She sat on the floor with me and stroked my hair until I stopped sobbing. One has been texting me every day to make sure I’m okay to the point of annoyance. Another took me out on Saturday with the intention of doing anything I wanted to do all day that would make me happy. They all want to see me happy and they will do anything in their power to make it so.

These are the kind of friends that life has finally handed me after years and years of awful, terrible people who abused my trust and should be rotting in jail, even though they aren’t. These friends are my reward for making it this far. It makes me want to cry to think of how fortunate I am to have people like that in my life. I never would have thought it possible that I would have people surrounding me that I would do anything for and they would do the same. I have the best friends in the world. I am privileged that I finally know what friendship means. Anything less is not true friendship.