Friend Found!

For the husband and me, it was love over a couple of phone calls and reading to-and-fro from our blogs. It was the serious kind of love where a sense of duty and commitment, respect mattered most right from the start. Our dating days were spent more on trying out new cuisines, traveling for long hours to see each other, browsing different sections in bookstores or aimlessly walking around hand-in-hand. We had long decided we were meant to be. And we believed in letting each other be.
What I am trying to say in the above-mentioned paragraph is that my then boyfriend never saw me as friend-material. I was always his girlfriend, his lover. He had his set of friends and I had mine. These two sets never met and we like it that way. So we never walked through a phase where we had to evolve from friendship…really.

However, yesterday, on the first Sunday of August, i.e. friendship day, he sent me a WhatsApp message. It is an image which says, “We are best friends. Always remember that if you fall I will pick you up after I finish laughing!” yeah that’s the type of friend I am. I have this crazy laughing instinct that bubbles up ever-so-often and is uncontrollable. Most of the times people think of me as this snob who won’t help but laugh first. But those who know me know that it’s just who I am. And the husband knows this only too well. I am a prankster but for him, I have toned it down. Yet, I laugh my heart out every chance I get at him. If I fall, I laugh. If he or anyone else falls, I laugh.
So you’d ask me…what about this message? After all, he was just messaging me ‘Happy Friendship Day’. The thing is we never celebrate friendship day among ourselves. We always maintained that it was for friends and if we did happen to wish each other, it was in jest. But his message yesterday (he is out of town… celebrating Rakhi with his sisters), threw me off balance (so much so that I am blogging about it!).
My first reaction was that he was making fun of me. As for the message – that’s me.  Can’t help it. However, I always thought up until this message that this habit annoyed him to bits. Yet, it made me happy. I read it twice, smiled at it and left it. But somehow it stayed with me for the entire day. And when finally we did chat over video, I asked him why he sent me this. He told me what I knew already – the quote described me best. But was I his friend? He said, “Yes! Of course, you are my friend!”
His answer seemed incredible to me. To you, you can think of it as ‘no big deal’ but friendship, coming from him, was important. We both are sort of loners and can count our friends on our fingertips. Yet, either of us doesn't feature on each other’s friend list. But he said this to me made my day. It felt wonderful.
I know… people will say this common. But really is it? Isn’t it the other way round; friends and then lovers? Then maybe marriage? For me, the journey began at love followed by marriage and now friendship. It is the little things that make it wonderful each day. I am glad he found a friend in me.