This afternoon I picked up one of my coffee table books, I haven’t read in almost two years. Lynsey gave me Influence by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen for Christmas in 2008. I opened it to find this. “My Dearest Friend–Being the loving, hard-working and kind person you are–you influence me everyday. I love you so much and our forever friendship is my most prized possession. You are a true role model, Kendall.” I started thinking about the people in my life who influence me. Naturally I think of my parents, my siblings and my friends. Each of them influence me in such unique ways, individual to their own extraordinary qualities. They are so important and deserve so much more than just a mention, in a paragraph, in a post; so eventually I’d like to write a post on each of them. But today’s is dedicated to my oldest friend, Lynsey.
Lynsey has been my best friend since I was six years old. Every day we just get closer and closer, which is good since I vividly remember sobbing when she went to college and I thought our friendship would never recover, let alone be the same. Hilarious, right? Her friendship means more to me than just about anything in my life. Never in my life have I met someone so genuine. The eternal optimist, the happiest person I know and the kindest girl on the face of the earth–Lynsey is effervescent. And I am a better person because of her friendship. She influences me to see the good in everything and everyone I meet. She accepts everyone she knows just as they are. I try to do the same, never judging and always listening. Lynsey is the yin to my yang and understands me like nobody else. And there is nothing more to say other than this: when I am 85 years old, sitting in a rocking chair next to my husband there will still be mystery, because I know there will be no way to tell him every crazy adventure Lynsey and I have gotten ourselves into.
I feel incredibly blessed to have such a large number of really really close friends. I can immediately count eight friends that I could without a doubt tell my deepest darkest secrets. I think this is pretty unusual. I have always felt speechless with gratitude for these people and I can’t wait to share what I love about each of them. Because one of the only things I know for sure is that a day with any of these people is better than anything else on earth.