Friendship, Part Two

The situation with my friend Danielle has been resolved. She is home and recovering. They are having a small funeral service tomorrow for the baby. I'm going to drive up to VA tomorrow morning, attend the service, spend some time with her, and then drive home tomorrow night. It'll be about 6 hours of driving, but it's worth it to be there for my friend.

I've learned so much about friendship in the last few months. When I posted this, I was conflicted and felt like I had been a crappy friend most of my life. Since then, some college friends have come back into my life, Danielle and I have become closer friends, and I have strengthened some other, long-standing friendships. I feel like I've been given a second chance. I'm grateful, and I'm working on my friendships. I realized that part of the problem is that I took my friends for granted and assumed that they would always be there, always want to be friends with me. Now, I've realized that the best thing I can do is treat my friends the way I want to be treated. It was difficult to be there for Danielle throughout this because I live so far away. I felt like there was so little I could do. I sent her flowers while she was in the hospital and text messaged her every day to see how she was. If I lived closer, I would have visited her in the hospital, taken her magazines and food, looked after her son while the whole family was at the hospital, so much more than I could do from here. But she knew I cared, that I was concerned about her, that I was here for her. And that's what matters.