Les gens que j'aime

This is my friend Caro.

I don't know if she realises it, but she means the world to me.

I don't remember how our friendship really started... First real hangout I can remember was when she invited me to see a show 2 years ago on a cold winter night. Her boyfriend was in europe and her friends couldn't go out with her.

I happily obliged. I love shows and good company. And making friends as an adult just seems to get harder and harder.

I also thought it was pretty cool of her. Most people in relationships start wearing shackles, out of respect - or of repercussions- of their significant other. Yet, here we were, at a tiny bar, listening to Keith Kouna. Her drinking beer, me with a virgin mary (I was in my 100 days without beer pledge), talking about everything and nothing, as if we'd known each other for a long time.

With this comes trust. Her trust that I would respect her relationship and not try to hit on her. And so I didn't.

I don't know if she realises how fucking shitty I had been feeling those days, and how much just that little carefree social outing helped me. She didn't care that I wasn't drinking - she was there to have a good time.

Caro is one of the most interesting people I know - mainly because she's kinda nuts, and fully embraces it. She never apologizes for what she is. If you don't like her, deal with it - she won't put a mask on for anyone.

But behind the torpedo of energy, outbursts of joy, and devil-may-care attitude, lies a person that is genuinely concerned for her friends and the people around her. The kind of values that seem to diminish more and more as we grow older. I've been holding on to this as hard as I could, but lately I had started giving up, seeing that I found it in other people so rarely. She gives me a reason to try and keep that heart of gold.

She tries to enjoy every minute of every day. She has fun everywhere she goes. If there's something in her life she doesn't like - fuck it - it's gone. She doesn't give a rat's ass what people think of her, or where she should be in society's hierarchy at her age. Doing things her own way.

She reminds me a lot of me and of how free I wish I was.

It was during an early summer night, with a cold beer in hand on a park bench, that I really got to know Caro. I knew she had been traveling a lot the past years and so I told her that I was planning to go on a trip to asia. Rather than ask a million questions like everyone else, all I got was:

FUCK YEAH!

And a beer cheer.

And that was so refreshing.

Not having to explain myself. What are you going to do for money? Where are you going to stay when you come back! You're just going to quit your job like that? What about your cats? We're not gonna see you for months? You're not scared?

No. All she did was tell me how much she loved it when she went. That it's the best thing I could do - ever. She gave me the motivation to finally start the process of changing my life around, whether she likes it or not.

She won't take responsibility for it.

Merci Caro.