My best friend and I have a somewhat turbulent relationship. We are two very different characters, complete opposites: I'm this white-looking brazilian girl who loves to take random pictures and post them on her flickr and write on her blog and loves typefaces and museums and poetry and design and things of that nature. She's this girl from Gary, Indiana who hates to be defined as the girl from Gary, Indiana and who has this holistic approach to life and loves motivational things and self-help books and has healthy eating habits and loves to go out to clubs every weekend and is funny and adventurous and free-spirited. Somehow we compliment each other really well, and with her I've learned to love Family Guy, I've learned to take care of my skin and wash off my make up before going to bed, I have learned I can be too judgmental and I should make an attempt to be open minded about people who are not just like me. On the other hand, I try to be the best friend I can be, and I listen to her telling me how wild her weekend was, and how all those extremely odd things happened to her in the same day, and I try to tell her some things I have learned the hard way hoping that I'll save her some energy and heartache, because I hate to see her not knowing what to do.
That's how we've been for the past 5 and a half years. We were on non-speaking terms for a few months about 2 years ago, and more often than not we'll argue for hours on the phone about things we both know we'll never agree on and for the sake of our friendship we'll just agree to disagree on those things forever. Or until my stubborn ass learns how to bend and admit I might be wrong.
My point is, she's definitely someone who's had great impact in my life, and I wish I knew how to show her my appreciation as often as she shows me (well, that applies to several people in my life, but that's a whole different story). Yesterday we somehow got to talking about how you get to a point in your life where you're mature enough to realize that you're are indeed a product of your upbringing and that the values your parents taught you live within you whether you like it or not. I told her how I often find myself in situations where I'm lost thinking "what would my father do?", so that maybe I can find within myself the answers that he would give me.
And she said to me "Well, you're like that to me. Every time I need to make an important decision, or when I'm overwhelmed, or when I'm about to lose my temper, or be unreasonable, I have to stop and think: 'ok, what would she do?' ".
