Just trying to love a little harder

Distance is challenging my friendships. I truly underestimated how difficult it would be to keep up with people that I once saw daily and now live thousands of miles away from.

However, the relationships I’ve been able to hold onto have been absolutely invaluable to me as I face a new environment and challenges — separate from just about everything that was once familiar. For a while I thought that I was doing just about everything wrong. But on days I woke up with the world on my shoulders, I would go back to a text, a tweet, a status or a note of a friend that reminds that I’m important, loved, and talented.

We all need that.

When it comes to our friends, sometimes we neither build or break.

Don’t keep your friends’ gifts a secret. On days when they lose themselves you have to be there to remind them of who they really are.

Most friendships don’t have vows, but why shouldn’t they? Especially if they’re life-long friendships. Marriages begin in vows. Baby christening vows of people promising to play an important role in the child’s life — so why can’t friendships have vows too?

To the phenomenal people spread across the country and globe that I’m honored to share the bond of friendship with,

I vow to build and not break you, to uplift you and to not pull you down and to strap your dreams on my back as if they are my own. I promise to remind you of your greatness when you feel inadequate and of your courage when you are afraid. I plan to not only cheer for you in the stands but when the game of life gets complicated, I promise to remind you that you’re already a champion.

Because I need you — and you need me too.