Friendship is Magic with Apple Jack

I've always believed that once you reach a certain age, your circle of friends elevate in importance to take on a much more familiar role. As we move away from home and begin to become the adults that will eventually replace our childish selves, we start to create close comradal units that in many ways replace the roles that had once been held by parents and t siblings.

The turning point for most is university, when you suddenly find yourself thrust into unfamiliar territory with unkown people, each of whom is in exactly the same boat. And so you latch on to the first few people that show a vague interest in your interests. You party with them, you study with them, and chances are by second year, you'll be sharing a house with them. If you're lucky, they won't turn out to be complete weirdos the moment you move in, and you'll spend the next few years happily cohabilitating with people who will eventually be stood next to you at graduation, hold positions of importance at your wedding, and probably stick around for decades to come.

As the fairytale that is university comes to an end, you'll find yourself moving away, possibly to a different end of the earth, and many of those who made up your cadre of everyday drinking buddies will become little more than a fond memory, mentioned at dinner parties. A select few, however, will remain a huge part of your life, and should be held on to; these are the people who would ride side by side into battle with you, and should be considered sacred.

As you move from town to town and job to job, you will soon accumulate a disjointed collection of confidants, many of whom may well disappear once you inevitably move on, but some, like a tattoo on your soul, will stay with you for life, no matter the distance, no matter the time.

This morning, due to the miracle of Skype, I was able to speak to two of my best friends in the world (literally). Both of them live over ten thousand miles away; one of them I have not spoken to since Christmas Day, and not seen since I left Japan a year and a half ago, and the other I have not seen since three years ago when he provided shelter after the Fukushima tragedy. But is it odd to talk after such periods of time? Of course not! You simply pick up from the last conversation and find yourself kicking yourself for not finding the time to speak more often!

My best friends from school (indeed I feel blessed that ten years on I am still very much in contact with friends I've known since before puberty) I see very rarely these days, but whenever we're in the same town, we make sure to meet up for a drink, and for a brief while we're teleported back to sixth form.

But that's the magic of friendship; friends not only provide you with an endless amount of support, they also remind you of the best times in your lives, the crazy stuff you did, and occasionally, just how good it feels to revel in your communal awesomeness.

So to my friends in Durham, in London, in Leeds, Stilton, the midlands and in Blackpool. To those in Cardiff, in Hamburg, in the Tokyo area and that town near Kobe that I can't recall. The the weird one in California and the even weirder one in Istanbul. To all of you, I extend my thanks and admiration. The journeys we've had and those to come. You're all freakin' awesome.

And friendship is ruddy magic!