We all know them (and if we don’t that is a very sad thing), we all love them, and we would all be in far worse place without them. They’re our support system.

Everyone needs a support system. Sometimes, we can fall in love and fall out of touch with our people, with the ones who have carried us, or sometimes even drug our sorry asses to that point in our lives. Through the breakups and the letdowns, the changes we wanted or didn’t and the nerve wracking waiting moments. Sometimes we move away and life takes us in such different directions that we lose that constant interaction that we may have once had. But if we’re lucky, those people love us truly, deeply and know who we are on a level that won’t move even if physically we have moved or mentally (like being madly in love) we may have temporarily moved our perspective.

Here are a few of the people we should all have in our lives on some level.

There is that person who has known you since you were a small child. Okay, so maybe you have completely different points of view, beliefs, and people in each of your lives. Maybe sometimes you want to make them stop talking when they go on about their political views but they will always remember the amazing mud pie that you made under the propped up cab of your dad’s pickup truck. They will always remember the picture that you drew for them and left on their doorstep when they were grounded and the best friend necklaces that you saved up for-for months and months until you could jointly afford it. You will always remember feeling like tomorrow was too long to wait to play with your treasured friend again and begging for a sleepover. No matter what, that child is still in you both somewhere and in magical moments, the two of you find them together and play just like the good old days.

Then there is the person who was there since grade school, who taught you to say “oh my god,” instead of “oh my gosh” when your mother wasn’t around. Who stood by you all the way until your senior year and stood in line crying with you at your first funeral for the boy in high school who died in a car accident. I think we all can remember this moment, the moment someone our age as a teenager passes. It is forever engrained in your memory. So are the people who went through it with you. She knows your boyfriend stories and your heartbreaks and a lot about your family and…you know hers.

There is your mother, your father, your sister, your brother. Your grandmother, grandfather, etc…you get the point. For many of us, though, there was that one special family member in our ocean of family blessings that helped get us through our childhood and adolescence, and even if they aren’t physically around after a certain point, our adult lives through the memory of love that will envelop us forever like a big hug or like a warm bowl of soup that brings comfort to a cold day.

Then there are the magic people who seem to come into your life as if out of a cloud and you get along like “peas and carrots” as Forrest Gump would say. This person has a great handle on where you’re currently at and, amazingly enough, has chosen you for their friend. They are your cheerleader, your confidante and best of all, your true friend. They wish you success and happiness and you wish them the same.

Of course, the list wouldn’t be complete without the love of your life. They know your absolute worst side, your moments of complete breakdown and have an auditory memory of your laugh monogrammed onto their heart. They have kissed your forehead a thousand times over, hell, maybe 5,000 times but you know however many times they do it, it will never get old. You have cried together, laughed, screamed and shouted. You have made love, war and dinner together, sometimes all in the same night. But if ever you are down they will feel it more than you do, they will lose sleep over your defeats and rejoice over your accomplishments as if they were their own. You will hopefully grow old together. One of you will feel the loss of the other deeply at some point; hopefully that day is a long day away. No matter what pain you may have to feel in the future because of how much you love them, you are lucky to have them and please count your blessings daily.

Like the cells of your DNA these people make up your history, they course through your blood and carry you around just as much as your body does.

Of course, you must be there for yourself as well! Be a friend to yourself and love yourself. Be your biggest cheerleader, your best friend ever! Do not talk about yourself in any way but how you would speak about these wonderful people. Before all else, be there for yourself, but allow the beauty of these people to seep into your very soul.

You are lucky to have them. Count your blessings.

~

Editor: Greg Eckard.