Wow,
it’s February already. The month of luuuuuurve. That’s what my brain (and I’m
sure it’s not just me) jumps to at the mere mention of February: Valentine’s
day and all it entails. Cuddles and cute red hearts, sickly-sweet selfies with
significant others and shout outs to “best friends” and “baes” on facebook.
Don’t
get me wrong, I’m not hatin’ on the holiday. I love Valentine’s day. I think it’s
wonderful that our society celebrates love. From shyly delivering cards to
childhood crushes to watching my grandparents slow dancing to Frank Sinatra, I have great
memories of Februarys past. I just think that there is far too much emphasis
placed on romantic love.
Romantic
love is important and noble and adorable and necessary, but it is hardly fair
to prioritize any and all romantic loves above other types of love. Consider, the
“love” in a relationship between teenagers who probably won’t be able to stand
each other in a year’s time versus the love shared in a relationship between mother
and child, between roommates, teammates or longtime friends.
This
week, I’ve had some time and reason to ponder on platonic love—particularly the
love between my roommates.
To
make a Harry Potter reference (because that's how I role), “there are some things you can’t share without
ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is
one of them” (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, 1997).
Not to say that we’ve faced fictional creatures of terror together, but we’ve spent over four months together facing adult, college-student life together. This is including but not limited to responsibilities, boys, breakups, breakdowns, homework, house cleaning and house parties. If that isn’t the real life equivalent of a twelve-foot troll, I don’t know what is.
We’ve prayed together, laughed together, snuggled and napped together, shared food and funny stories, and we’ve seen each other through every mood in the spectrum. And this weekend, when one of my roommates walked into our apartment several hours later than expected, after having gone through a serious, life threatening accident and emerged unscathed, we held back tears together as we clung to each other. We knelt together and thanked God for her safety. And I realized just how dear each of these women has become to me, how devastated I would be to lose any of them. God puts people in our lives for a reason, and the ladies of apartment 113, my friends, have made my life better by their being in it, and that seems reason enough for me.
