No texts on my iPhone, sitting at home on a Friday night, wondering when my life will start over, where has she gone? The boredom sets in like a paper towel, soaking up water, and the loneliness picks at every part of my heart. My best friend, Chelsey, had left to another school the start of junior year, right when high school starts to get exciting. I felt alone during this whole situation. Feeling like I had no friends, I found out shortly that I had many friends, wanting to be with me, but I never really noticed. That’s where I found out the definition of a true friend. The word friend is an acronym every letter spelling out something I had experienced in trying to make new friends, since my high school buddy had made the unexpected move.

F stands for fun. This simple, but powerful, word explains the whole meaning of a friend. A friend is someone who makes me smile, laugh, and pee my pants laughing, and also he or she tries to put a smile on my face every day. Passing notes will always be something I remember with Chelsey. By the end of our freshman year, we had five or six notebooks full of memories. Each note was something special that made my day every time I received the notebook back. The notes varied from talking about people to telling our feelings towards events.

R is representing “real” because this is one of the most important steps in discovering a friendship. Being a real friend defines character, in which the friend cares about me, and is hurt when someone or something happens in my life. Over time, Chelsey and I had faced many challenges together with typical drama and life problems that we knew our friendship was real and not fake. Sometimes, we ignited an argument with each other, and we would occasionally tell gossip about each other. However, we always knew we would always be there to support one another.

I represents ice cream. Funny, one may think. Ice cream is not meant literally, rather symbolically. Everyone is different or special in his or her own way, or flavor. On top of an ice cream cone, a person can stack different flavors on each other. Some flavors are very different but make a good combination, but some are different and make gross combinations. When the two flavors match, a person has something great. After all, would anyone like to eat a mint and watermelon flavored ice cream cone?

E is for empathetic. Because if I want a great friend, we must understand each other. I won’t forget the look Chelsey and I gave each other when a teacher would give out awful homework or when we would sit in Algebra class and act goofy the whole time. We understood each other when we were feeling sad, angry, happy, and annoyed. Showing empathy makes people closer to one another. N is for nice. The word seems small, but small items make the biggest difference. A friend should be nice to others at all times, no matter what the circumstance, also he or she should be supportive in everything, as well as a shoulder to cry on for help. Chelsey and I used to talk on the phone for hours before she left and talk about how our days went.

Finally, D represents determination. After Chelsey left, we were determined to keep our friendship alive. We both knew, it wouldn’t be as great as it was before, but we were both determined to make it work somehow. Chelsey and I occasionally text, go out to eat, and hang out still, but I guess, none of that really matters. If both friends are determined, it is a great friendship no matter what. That’s why we make such a great pair of friends, also known as the Double Trouble Duo, and we both remain great people to each other. As I learned, finding a friend was easy, but finding a F.R.I.E.N.D. was special.