Who is your "anyway" friend?

On last night's episode of Private Practice, there was a wedding. In his speech, the father of the bride recalled a time when his daughter declared she was going to marry her daddy one day, because he was her “anyway friend” – the one person, who, through life’s ups and downs, through all the good and the bad, loved her anyway.

Your “anyway friend” despite all the mistakes you make, despite all of your bad judgment calls, despite the way you live your life differently then they do, loves you anyway. They don’t try to change you. Don’t try to make you more like them. Don’t try to make you live like they do, think like they do, act like they do. They let you be you. In fact, they encourage it. They cheer you on, they push you to be your best, not their best. They celebrate your victories with you, whatever they are and however big or small they may be. Maybe they aren’t their ideas of victories, maybe it isn’t the way they would have done it, and if you fall short, or even if you don’t succeed, they love you anyway. They don’t say “I told you so”, they don’t try to “fix it” and they don’t tell everyone else that they knew all along it was never going to work.

As a parent, of course you are the “anyway friend” – that’s your child. It’s your job to love them anyway. It’s second nature. It’s human nature. No matter what they do, no matter what happens, you’ll love them anyway.

But your “anyway FRIEND” the one(s) that you aren’t related to, CHOOSES to be that. Chooses to love you anyway. Forever, for always and no matter what. Unconditional support, unconditional acceptance, unconditional love.

The more you screw up, the more human you are. Some people use those moments against you, base their opinions of you on those moments alone. They don’t stop to consider what else may be going on behind the scenes, or that you are human, or that not all humans think or act alike, and all humans make mistakes.

And some people…love you anyway.