It's our pleasure to welcome Vala Kaye to our Welcome Wednesday spot this week. She's got a great post on the importance of teen friendships that I know you'll love. So without further ado, take it away Vala....
Teen Friendships Can Last a Lifetime
By Vala Kaye
Not all the people you meet during your teen years will become
your BFFs, but if you’re very fortunate, one or two might always be with you to
share the ups and downs that happen to us as we go through life.
I have two “lifetime” friends. One I met in junior high and
the other in high school. One is similar to me in temperament, while the other
couldn’t be more different. We’ve
shared school experiences; engagements, marriages and divorces; the birth of
children; and the deaths of grandparents, parents and siblings.
Those are the big things, the huge emotional highs and lows
that only time and the love and caring of true friends can help see you
through. But we’ve also always been there for one another through the smaller
things in life, everything from movie nights and mid-terms to concerts and
cooking disasters.
When I was working on my YA paranormal novella, Ghost Writer, I gave my main character,
Malden, a friend named Ashley. They go to the same school and I suspect they’re
truly BFF’s. When I was writing the scenes where Malden and Ashley, though
physically separated by hundreds of miles, are online in their school’s student
chat room, I thought about how my friends and I sound when we’re filling each
other in on “the latest.” Not only do we talk about what’s happening to us and
what we’re feeling, but sometimes we also pick up on what our lifetime friends aren’t saying, what they’re holding
inside because they’re afraid of being embarrassed or laughed at.
Because we love them, we have to gently remind them just who
they’re talking to. With a “lifetime” friend, they’re safe. And it’s okay to
share anything.
People can come into our lives for “a reason, a season or a
lifetime.” I believe those who are with us for a lifetime are the most special
of all.
Excerpt from “A Reason, A
Season And A Lifetime” by Brian A. "Drew" Chalker
LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; those things you
must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to
accept the lesson, love the person/people and put what you have learned to use
in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.
Sixteen-year-old Malden Montgomery leaves New York City anticipating nothing but boredom when her artist/mother insists she come along on a two week vacation to a family inn in rural Virginia. What Malden doesn't expect is that the owner’s seventeen-year-old son, Jackson, will be totally to-die-for cute or that her room at the inn will be haunted by a young woman named Emily, who died there in 1865. When Emily somehow begins to communicate with Malden via an Internet chat room, she and Jackson have to find a way to help Emily's ghost come back home or risk a spirit’s wrath if they choose to leave her lost in the darkness forever.
2 comments:
Oh, I love the comment about friends that can come into your life for "a reason, a season or a lifetime". How lucky that you've had those friends for mostly a lifetime. I have a friend I've had for a lifetime, but she's more like a sister, so calling her a friend isn't quite right.
It's nice to know that there are certain people who will stand with you in the shadows when you don't feel like the sun will ever shine again.
Thanks for visiting Honestly YA!
Thank you for reading and leaving a comment, Kimberly! I can't imagine going through life without friends to help us get through those tough times, so I've never put any of my characters in that situation, either. If they don't have a trusted friend or family member as a confidante from the start, they befriend someone really quickly. I've never been drawn to stories about "loners" with no strong ties to other people.
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