WHAT IS FRIENDHSIP??

Today is the 21st day of January, 2011 at 06:11 hours Nigerian time here I am sitting on a two-sitter couch in the living room of the two-bedroom flat I share with my siblings. My sister called me this morning at exactly 10:34:09am and told me my eldest brother said I was a thief and that she agreed completely. What did I steal? My own money! However I will not go into the gory details of what led to the name calling but I hung up the phone bitter and almost in tears, well I was in tears with my heart bleeding and nothing to stop it.

Why am I writing this and then putting it out here in cyberspace for the whole of the cyber world to read? Well honestly, I don’t know but after the call I spent hours in contemplation of the journey to where I am today and what I could hang on to. To my disappointment or should I say amazement, I realized that aside from the God who created me and whom I love, I had no one who really knew me or I could say is actually my shoulder to cry on.

Don’t get me wrong, I have friends and I am fortunate to have met people, I even have family members and a lovely parents. But in all of these people I could not think of one person I could call and pour out my heart to.
Realizing this I decided that I might as well be alone in the world or let’s put it this way, in spite of the fact that I love people and life it was obvious that when it really comes down to it “it’s just me” after all is said and done.

At this conclusion, I now wonder what really is friendship and who really is a friend? Is there a kind of grade for knowing who your friend is? If family can gang up against you to do you harm then won’t a “friend” do worse?
Do I continue to love people or do I just love myself alone? Where is that helping hand that should be there for me to make my burden lighter? Or did I miss something along the way about what and who a “friend” should be? I thought it is said “a tree does not make a forest”? or is it that all trees should be their own keeper? I ask all these questions because if I can’t point at one person and say this is the one person who knows me well, then what is the purpose of friendship?

Someone please help me!!
If you have answers to my question please I would like to hear them. God bless you as you read and lend a helping hand.