EM

I believe in friendship, which might be a odd way of putting it, but I will give reasoning for my thinking and I will explain this random thought and make you understand the meaning behind these words, and what meaning they have for me - because if I learned one thing this last year and a half, it is that all people have different perceptions of words and the meaning behind them. It is not a bad difference, because difference is never a bad thing - it's just different and differences make the world move forward. So even if it isn't a bad thing, it sometimes and at curtain points make things confusing and in a different culture as I'm now finding myself in the middle of, it sometimes puts you in a situation where you need to sit down, calm down your spinning brain and try your hardest to understand and relate even though it many times is difficult. But as I'm now finding myself in a new culture, living a new life and creating an environment worth living in, it's my own responsibility to understand the world that I'm living in!

As growing up I have always been an over social person, with tons of energy and skills to talk to people, random people, people with different backgrounds, different life styles and different interests. I adapted well with new people and instantly found my spot in the group of people. I had many so called friends, people that I knew, people that I talked to and people that I liked. I spend all my energy on being well liked by many instead of being loved by few. Once my high school sweetheart told me "Em, the person who doesn't have any enemies does not have any real friends" I swiped his words of my chest like it was an irritating summer bug, who was he to talk?
Growing up I learned that the reasoning behind his words might have been something I should have been listen to more carefully and actually learn something from it. Growing up we have many times been told that you can't be loved by them all, and you can't like everyone, but I wanted to prove that this was wrong and that I can be loved by them all and I can also love them back.
But having a million people that you know and care about makes the energy you put towards this people very limited and the energy you get back is just as limited.

Today I value things different then I did then and I am a much happier person today.
When I was younger I spent all this energy towards people who loved the attention but they didn't care for real friendship, they weren't people to call when life kicked my ass from time to time, and they weren't the people who called me when they were planning dinner parties for close friends. I spent tons of energy and gained very little for myself, my battery drained out and I was left alone in the end of the day. Because sometimes it doesn't matter how many people you have in your phonebook or how many people you say HI to walking around downtown, because even if your name is known by many you can still live a lonely life without a safe zone to call your own, without a friend to call in the middle of the night with the sorrows making your heart hurt and brain on a heavy rotation.
I stopped.
Today I might not be the person people call for party check ups, I might not have 300 numbers to random people were I don't know or care about the last name of half of them. Today on the other hand I have a circle of friends who loves me just because I am the way I am, who gives me all the energy I give them, who care about my future, who're listening when life is rough and unfair. Today I have people that I call my friends, does other people from my past are just people that I know or people that I know the name of.
I believe in friendship, and I believe that the meaning behind friendship is different for many people, but for me it's easy to define, a friend is everything above and so much more, a friend is someone that you love, a friend is someone that you care about, a friend is a person who doesn't judge, a friend is a person who stands by your side regardless of what you do.
If I call you my friend, I will do all this and everything else that I can do to make your life easier, funnier, better and brighter - I will stand by your side and be the person you can call, the person you can cry out the tuff times to, the person you can laugh with, the person who'll always be there for you.
If I call you my friend, it's because I believe in you and I believe that you will give my life something that makes my life a little brighter and better.
I don't play games, I don't fake social with people I don't find interesting or worth spending time and energy on - which might sound rough, but on the other hand, it's not, because you can't love them all and if you can't love them all, love the ones you can and let the others go. I'm honest, if I call you my friend, I love you, and if I love you I will do everything for you.
But this is where my culture differs from the America beauty. It's as I said not bad, but different and something I'm struggling with on a daily base.
It's difficult for me to know and understand what's real here and what's not. If there is one thing Americans are amazing at, it is to use the world love.

I don't think I ever heard the world love so many times, daily, as I have since I came to America.

I am very careful today on what people I let into my life and in a country as America it might many times be difficult to live like that, since everyone here are very open and outgoing, kind of like I used to be at the age of 14 and 15. It's easy to fall in to that, trust and believe that love is actually there and that this person might actually be your friend.
I have learned the hard way to not listen anymore, and that's my way of dealing with the American culture.

Because one other thing I have learned to value since I came here, and that is that actions speaks louder then words. Be my guest and tell me that you love me, be my guest and call yourself my friend - but that doesn't make it true, that doesn't make it my reality. The day your actions goes hand in hand with your words is the day I will let you in to my life, that is the day I will spend my energy towards your needs and goals, that day is the day I will call you my friend. I'm not getting burned again, I believe in happiness way to much to put myself out there before I know it's safe.
Doing this I ended up with friends who I love more the life itself, doing this I ended up with people who never leaves me to my own sorrows, doing this made me apart of a family, a family of close friends who would do anything for each other. This is what I believe in, this is what I believe is worth waiting for. Don't' spend energy on people who doesn't appreciate your friendship, because that's just bad energy - because your friendship is important, if not to this person it might be important to someone else, so keep your life on rotation, live and learn, meet great people, and meet not so great people, love and give and you will gain.
I don't need a million people to make myself feel important, I don't need a thousands of people reinsure my ability as a good friend because honestly, today I couldn't care less. I care about my friends and their opinions are extremely important to me, but the rest, is not up to me, it's up to the world to figure out. I'm secure and I'm never alone, I'm loved and I love - How am I to call myself unhappy?
I'm the happiest version of me at this point of my life, I found myself, I found people who loves me, I found a safe and warm environment. Don't throw your heart out to the world, because if you don't trust the person who catches it, how do you know you'll get it back?

It's bedtime in the states, I'm tucking in.
The snow is still left on the ground, crystal clear, it feels a little bit like home and my homesickness from earlier is gone out the window, I'm peaceful, happy and relieved of the fact that life always have a way to figure itself out if you only have some faith in the fact that after low points there are highs that will give you butterflies and happy ending.

Who said that ZSA ZSA ZSU is only for love? Zsa zsa zsu is the story of my life, the feeling that I'm searching in everything that I do - zsa zsa zsu gives be the strength to work harder, just a little bit harder to find myself in the exact place I'm at right now - in a very happy state of mind.

Love em.