The Curious Case of Jenni Sofia: I Have Found Friends From A Random Place

Oh dear, oh dear.

The festival season is about to start.

The big five.

Valentine's Day.
Easter.
My birthday.
1st of May.
Midsummer.

(Not forgetting April Fools OR Hockey World Cup season!)

It's that time of the year, for me to write something from my heart, to my friends. This topic is very dear to me, as my friends are so very important to me.

I was trying to think back, myself as a friend throughout the years. I took out the old photo albums and saw my appearance change, personality mould and witness how I've been slowly but surely growing up.

It's been a long journey and I'm far from being finished but I think I have a pretty good idea who I'am now.

As I look around in my room, living with my best friend in a city filled with my close friends I must say - that I've done okay.

A girl so difficult, no one wanted to hang around with but didn't dare to ask me to leave. A girl so sassy nobody dared to have crossed words with.

The girl so loud and so afraid that people would't like the real me.

Just shut up, would you?!

But then people dared to leave me out. Dared to say what they thought and said that my words hurt. People calling me out for my bullshit and seeing me for a who I really was:

A very insecure human being.

Taking the steps of learning who Jenni really is hasn't been easy. My friends have helped me through it. They are always on my side.

The right people used the right ways to help me figure out who the hell I'am. I wasn't abandoned nor left behind. I was taken care of and loved for who I was not who I thought they wanted me to be. With my friends now, there is no bullshit. It is what it is. And I'm grateful for that.

Road to my heart is rocky and some of the rocks I throw there by myself.

But true friends are lovers of the mind. To love someone doesn't have to do with anything physical. Just the mere presence of someone is enough. You choose your friends because they have something you can learn from, something you can lean onto, something you can be there for. To laugh, to cry, to have and to hold in the good, the bad and the ugly.

Now days we don't share blodbonds to mark friendships. It's knowledge within you that this person, he or she is there for you and you for them through thick and thin. That's what love is. That's why it has to be rocky at times. Is it really love if the other side gets all the comfort and the other side just uses all the breath and space? It's equality It's being humble. Someone gave you their trust, their secrets and their thoughts. This is a great power and a huge honor. Use it wisely.

I'm surrounded by my friends. Even they are not here in person, pieces of them are. I can see them all around me, in my bookshelf, on my walls, even my bed cover is a gift from a friend. It's the necklace you gave or the card you made. I value little tokens of friendship, even if it's nothing more than a mere button but seeing that specific button reminds me of how things started, how did we get here.

I believe that in life, we need certain people and certain friends to cope with everyday life.

For example, only people at work know what you talk about, when you talk about work related stuff. Just today I was laughing to Salla that she knows just by listening quite a lot about the daycare's and how things are done. I keep up with what's in and what's out in fashion. But I wouldn't know what she means with specific work vocabulary, she knows and she needs people around from work to laugh at the work stuff. To deal with it.

We have the friends from the period, when we were little. Then we were a bit older and now grown up. Each cycle has its own friends. People I spent my three years in High School with, aren't my close friends anymore. We share a mutual past, old adventures and the big dreams back in the day but our lives have taken different paths since. There is road to family and adulthood for some and then there is road to big money and big adventures to others.

While working in the drug clinic I saw what path can also lead you there and thanking my own parents for the right guidance and good advice so I never took that path.

There are many roads and many people we meet in this life. Just today in the metro I was thinking to myself how strange is it, that the whole metro compartment and I knew no one, where were they hurrying off to? Who was their Valentine?

**

Roosa

It's been now 4 years when my dog died and I still miss my dog(s) every so often. We had two dogs. Reetu and Roosa but Roosa has passed away long time ago. Roosa passed away back in 2003 Christmas. Roosa was always a bit more of my mums dog but Reetu was my friend, my companion. Through my parents divorce, my sister and dad moving out, Lasse growing up - Reetu was my dog. He was there to comfort me when I needed comfort and there to play with whenever I had the time to play.

Reetu

It's true that when you move away, when you grow up you forget to value time. There could've been more walks and joggs with my dog if I had taken the time, but I was busy - I was growing up. I last saw my dog in 2008 August just before leaving to America. I went to my knees and gave him a cuddle and said: "I think this is it buddy. I think we won't bee seeing each other again. Thank you for everything." I had a feeling that Reetu, 16 year old cockerspaniel wouldn't make it for another year.

8 months later I got the call that he has been put down and it took me days to recover. I still mourn in my own way.

Still today I mourn the loss of a true friend. Time goes by and I miss my friend. He was only a dog but he was there for me, like a true friend should.

Friends are the people who yell at if you are being a shithead but also quick to love when you need them.

I urge you to love your friends. Tell them that they really mean the world to you, especially us Finns. We assume people know how much we love them but words are words. It's nice to hear that your love is appreciated and not taken as granted. And that you love people back.

I've been reading old letters and notes from friends today and I want to thank my friends for the love they have for me.

Sometimes I seem to take them as granted, sometimes I don't remember to value all they have done for me. I'm not an easy friend to have. But in the end of the day, I know I'm much loved by many. I know that my friends know how much I care for them and they have their own ways of loving me back.

I'm so grateful for all my friends, the ones near by and the ones far away. And for those friends who I'm not that close anymore, or I hardly ever call.. Think it more of .. being on time out. That our friendship is taking a breather. We don't work at the same place anymore nor do we share the same circles but it doesn't mean our history is forgotten.

I sent out 17 Valentine's Day cards this year.

I didn't have the ability or resources to write to everyone I would have wanted to which is the reason I'm thanking you here. It's not as personal as sending you a card but it's remembering. I remember our history, I remember our past. I thank you for the hours we've spent and if we don't hang out everyday it doesn't mean this won't happen in the future.

I don't want to mourn after a lost friendship. I cherish ya'll as you are and I'm proud of my friends as they are magnificent, great and all so very different.

Thank you friends, I'm lucky to have you.