Before anyone starts thinking "Why didn't Chris put any spoiler warnings in the title!?" let me state that this is not a Deep Space Nine series finale thread. I just happened to like the title. 
As some of you may recall from the now-defunct and missing SFCR forums, I (like many people here) live with clinical depression. And about two and a half weeks ago I slipped into a pretty severe episode of depression, the likes of which I had not seen since junior high school. I only started coming out of this episode around last Wednesday.
I immediately began to follow the classic model of depression: I hid in my room more often than usual, and I didn't talk as much as I usually did. I managed to keep my sadness hidden from all but two very observant people: Kristi and Tim. It took a lot of coercion (and a little blackmail) to get me to open up to them, but I finally did confide in them during daily marathon talks for over a week and a half.
Now there was nothing particularly special about these talks. We didn't even focus on my problems half the time. But the simple presence of Tim and Kristi near me and the knowledge that they truly cared about me helped me infinitely more than their advice or opinions. I realized that although my life essentially sucked, I still had my friends. Not just Tim and Kristi but all of my friends from high school, college, and in cyberspace. And I know that every one of them cares about me and will care about me no matter what happens to me.
The one thing that I will carry from this lesson of life is how important friends are. I've always been a good friend. I've always valued my friends, but now I realize you shouldn't value your friends. You should treasure them. Your friends are worth a heck of a lot more than money, gold, or anything else. Good friends are hard to come by in life. They should be treasured as they are life's greatest gift, in my opinion. What I leave behind will be the fact that I did have a lot of friends. And I treasured every one of them.
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"Some people call me the Space Cowboy. Yeah! Some call me the Gangster of Love. Some people call me Maurice. Whoo hoo! 'Cause I speak of the Pompatus of Love!" - Steve Miller Band's The Joker
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