I’m now embarking on the second semester of my sophomore year in college and cannot even express the disorientation that I feel. It seems that life all around me these past two years has been a blurry tornado of events sending me into a parallel universe I never expected myself to enter. During this tornado of events, I have also realized the other “tornadoes” of people around me going on simultaneously. As my life furiously spins around, so do theirs. Somehow I end up with friends where our lives spin in unison and we end up in a cacophony of turmoil, questioning how we even got to where we are. Why do we have friends?

            Life often takes us on adventures both big and small to places and experiences that we might have thought impossible or not thought of at all. From being away at school, 110 miles from my hometown, I have learned that these adventures are happing all around us 24/7 in various forms. We often get sucked into them and along the way we meet people who are crossing a similar road to ours. Relationships form and like the bond formed between two molecules we form one compound society has deemed “friendship.”

            Yet why do friendships exist? In friendships, we find fluctuations in emotion, patience, respect. It’s only human that these fluctuations occur, but if they drive us insane and crazy why put effort into it? Maybe it’s due to the fact we as humans look beyond the fluctuations and we eventually peek into the true emotions of others around us. We feel turmoil but want love. We become broken and want to be healed. We sense pain and want peace.

            So while we spin simultaneously with friends in the tornadoes of life, let us remember that friendships exist because we see beyond the negative. Friendships bring out the mutual want for respect and the persistent quest for love.

Peace to all,

David Gambino