Friends Forever?

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.

You know that feeling - that new friendship. You meet someone and you instantly know that you click. It just feels right. It's almost a romantic feeling, finding that stranger who turns out to be so in sync with you. You laugh about the same things, gripe about the same things and find yourselves finishing each other's sentences. It's heaven.

You and your new friend, the soul mate you have found at the laundry, share everything in those first few months of newness. You tell her about the time you tripped and fell in front of the entire school, she tells you about how she chipped her tooth on the Ferris wheel, you tell her how you snuck out of the house to meet a boy when you were 15, she tells you how she dated a boy that her mother hated, and so on.

The friendship is easy, comfortable and liberating. It isn't long before you tell your new friend your darkest secrets, your most vulnerable moments. Your heart empties into her lap and it feels so good.

But, what happens when the friendship starts to unravel? Not that it is ultimately destined to unravel, but what if it does? Is it wise to pour out your soul so quickly to this once stranger? Do we open up our hearts only to have them bruised at a later date when we discover that the friend-of-our-dreams turns out to be not so?