I’ve had this post in the back of my mind since I started contemplating gratitude at the beginning of the month, but I felt like if I wrote it, it would come out wrong. And maybe it will, but I’m still going to try and write it.

I was thinking lately about the moments of my life when I’ve been the happiest or when I’ve felt the most joy, and I realized that they have one thing in common: I was with my friends. 

Like this entire weekend, when everyone was happy. Or this summer when I saw some of my closest friends in California. Or when my BC girls and I united in DC, also this summer. Or pigging out on beer, pancakes, and cheese fries after the half-marathon a couple of weeks ago. Or last Friday, when I went outlet shopping with my friends, bought a great bag at an awesome discount, and actually had fun (seriously, that’s a huge deal- normally I hate shopping!). Or any number of moments just hanging out and laughing in college or in the six years since.

I haven’t told a lot of people about this, but I have a great group of friends I met online on a Gilmore Girls forum eight years ago or so. I’ve met a few of them in person. We’ve all seen each other through marriage, divorce, relationships beginning and ending, new babies, deaths of family members, graduations, new jobs, losing jobs, moving, and any other big life event you can think of. We’re all very different, but we’ve formed a little online family- two of them actually became roommates earlier this year. They are fun, amazing, funny, loving, forgiving people, and whenever I have something I want to talk about and don’t know who else to tell, I tell them.

I can be a difficult person to be around. I can be moody and angry and overly nervous, and sometimes I’m not successful at hiding those things about myself. But I have friends who have seen those parts of me and, for some reason, don’t judge and still want to be around me. Friends who have helped me through my worst times- my first year out of college, when Christina was one of the few things keeping me from completely losing it, and when my anxiety got really bad.

I am beyond thankful for all of this. What I need to do my best to make sure is that I am as good of a friend to these people as they have been to me.

(Post title comes from this song.)