In our hostel in Rosario we met an Argentinian man who was in fact from Rosario. He told us a lot about the Argentinian culture and other interesting things such as Australia means ‘the land of the south’ in Spanish. Did you know that? I sure didn’t! Another interesting thing he told us, was that on the 20th of July they celebrate ‘friends day’ which happens to coincide with the day man landed on the moon. “What’s friends day?” I asked intrigued. ” friends day is a day to celebrate our friendship” he replied. “friends are the family we choose so its important to celebrate how much they mean to us” he said. Those words have had a big impact on me.
Friends are the family we choose. When put so simply it makes me think of all the times I’ve contacted people whilst I’m over sea’s or even sometimes while I’m at home that I consider are my friends. The times I realise I am the one to always initiate the emails or when I realise days, weeks, months pass and I still haven’t got a reply. Its almost like an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ situation. Since hearing these wise words I’ve decided that I am going to remove all sources of negativity from my life. I can choose who I want to be my friends and there’s no point in wasting my time and energy on people who can’t be bothered wasting the same on me.
Life’s too short and travelling makes me realise there’s so many amazing, beautiful souls out there who would go out of their way for a friend or even a stranger. I have friends who I have grown up with who provide the perfect friendship to me, but I also have friends I’ve only known for a little and met whilst travelling who say the most heart warming things to me, write me friendship poems, email me to ask me how my day was when their life is so insanely busy or even draw a picture of me and take it to ‘girls night’ because I was on the other side of the world and couldn’t make it. I’ve met people that I literally spent two days with and still keep in contact with a year later, these people went out of their way to write pages of information about South America for us to help us with our travels.
If your friends really are the family you choose, why waste your time on people who are too wrapped up in their own lives when there are so many amazing people out there willing to put their heart and soul into a friendship?…
The Life Of A Wanderer 