Write about being friends with someone.

Someone once described me as "magnetic." I draw people towards me. In some ways, I guess that's true. I've always had multiple groups of friends, at times I cross-pollinated them...sometimes with disastrous results.

I have a lot of friends and a few very good ones. They're always making fun of the fact that I "call everyone my best friend." In reality, I have four friends whom I call "best friend." I get some people don't even have one best friend but that's not my problem, is it?

One of those BFFs I've known a long time. Feels like I've known her my entire life. She and I have been through HELL and back together. We've been through some truly awful fights, ended friendships, broken relationships and at times haven't spoken to each other for months. We've seen each other grow up into the women we are today. We fight and love and laugh like sisters. She's my family. She was there when I first fell in love, she was there when I called her in hysterics because my new puppy wouldn't stop shitting everywhere, she was there as my maid of honor when I got married. There's not a chapter in my life she hasn't been involved in.

Another BFF of mine I've known since freshman year of college. He and I had a rocky, weird start. We weren't kids but we weren't quite adults yet either. College is a strange time, but we made it through that with a large group of friends that drank and did dumb shit together. He and I are complete opposites in almost every single way, we argue about everything, we have different perspectives on life. But that's what keeps our friendship interesting and alive. He educates me and I educate him. He and I grew up in religious homes that stunted our personal growth in ways only other kids who grew up like us would understand. We also can speak in just movie quotes for a solid 45 minutes. So there's that.

I met this BFF shortly after I met the one above, middle of freshman year. We didn't become close until the summer we lived together between my sophomore and junior years. It was during that time I discovered how much more I had in common with her than anyone else I knew at the time. We shared the same insecurities, anxieties and taste in TV shows. She was there for me when our old friends' group fell apart and I was so guilt-ridden because I felt partially to blame. When I'm feeling my most petty and shitty, she gets it because she feels the same way sometimes. I cannot extol enough the virtues of having someone truly relate when you're not feeling like a good person and they won't let you succumb to darkness.

My most recent BFF and I met because our partners at the time were good friends about five years ago. She and I clicked almost immediately. But we had our own separate group of friends, so our friendship grew more slowly than the others. In 2017, she and I shared a lot of demons with each other. Shit we don't share with other people, because those kinds of demons rely on your silence so you stay buried. She and I were both abused by people we trusted and loved. She and I are black women navigating an ever-devolving country that hates people like us. I can't imagine going through what I've gone through without her and I think she feels the same way. Sometimes she's the oxygen that the fire in me needs, other times she's the cool side of the pillow where I need to lay my head.

I often think of these four as my Sailor Scouts (don't judge). They're the Sailors Mercury, Venus, Moon and Mars to my Jupiter. One brings the brains, one brings the brawn, one brings the beauty, one brings the bite. And together they, along with my husband and my dog, complete me.