Girlfriends

What would you do if you had no friends? I was thinking about this today and counting my blessings about all the wonderful girlfriends I have had over my lifetime.  I am talking here about girlfriends. I don't believe your kids should be your best friends, I could never tell my kids what I tell my best friends, and it puts too much pressure on a parent child relationship. I don't even believe your spouse should be your best friend, maybe a unpopular opinion but it's mine. I think you need that "other" to bounce stuff off of, to be a sounding board to help see a tree in a forest so to speak. Spouse's are life partners and lovers and loves not best friends. Terry was not my best friend and I'll wager a bet he was glad I had best friends, he loved how I would come back from a night with them all settled and happy. My sister's were my best friends in my early years, my twin even now. Some girlfriends came into my life only for a purpose, we shared our lives and circumstances for that brief moment in time and they departed never to be seen from again. Some I work with or worked with in the past. Some are active close -all the time- friends who I rely on almost daily. They know everything, all the minutiae all what you are about and what you are going through. What they offer, man it is hard to put into words but I will try.

You get excited when you know you are going to see them, you feel withdrawal when a week has gone by without seeing them, you feel like you are living at home with a family again when they are around because they know so much about you. You have a history so you can unsay so much, yet still feel totally understood. They always boost my confidence, make me feel like I am a good person worthy of all good things life has to offer, and the sweet part is they feel this even when I don't. Oh that is a wonderful thing. To have your own cheering crowd when you personally feel like you have nothing to cheer about. My girlfriends make me laugh, real belly laughs, all those inside jokes. And then there is all that sex talk that just makes you squeal with delicious delight and laughter because they so get it. They don't make you blush or feel stupid just the opposite they make you feel alive and normal. They help you figure it out, they are in your corner with you, their advice has no hidden motives. I do not know why I am so blessed, I feel they give way more to me than I could ever hope to give back.

They share the bad with you too, I have a friend Cindy who made a decision to come to my house the night Terry died and she never left figuratively. Cindy's strong suit is being a friend, it's her talent, her passion. Coming that night was not an easy thing to do, but this chick has been by my side since then. Through all the pain, grief, growth and change in my life since he died, sitting by while I cried and told the same story over and over, she made that decision to be there. I didn't ask her, oh I needed her but I didn't have to ask, this is the type of friends I have. I have a friend that is so damn funny, she knows just what to say to make me break out into raucous laughter, and it's clever - oh so clever her wit.  One friend I have known almost 42 years, and we still meet and chat, she now family and we have all those moments in time to reminisce, all that herstory. Recently I started finding male friends, a whole new perspective and dynamic, but fun, so much to learn because I have never had male friends, not outside of my girlfriend's spouses.

What would I do without them in my life? I do not know. I might not be here to know. I have pushed people away, been so angry and depressed I couldn't stand myself yet my friends stood by, thank fuck! I read somewhere that social support is one of the key indicators for surviving a loss and a life crisis. Not money, not a job, not a good therapist, but social support. Are you loved, are you cared for, are they there at the ready for you when you need them? Where my friends are concerned the answer to this is yes yes yes.

What would you do without friends? If I look backward I still remember my first girlfriend, Donna, she shaped a lot of my budding personality between the age of 10-13, some of it good, some bad. She was the first girl I found my imagination with, my love of writing bloomed from her, the first girl I saw naked, the first I saw drunk, the first I smoked with, the first to betray me (none of this sexual by the way). As I look forward I think as we get older, there will come a time when we won't have any new friends who will know us as long as our current friends do. It gets harder as you get older to be out there in the world making friends. We become a little bit more insular more greedy with our time as we age. I can't imagine meeting a new girlfriend and knowing her for 42 years (I won't live that long most likely). I know people who do not make friends any more because their time is running out. That is sad. I want to always have friends, my old ones, my new ones I have yet to meet. I relish in the joy I had and have with my girls, always. I thank the universe for them, I am so blessed because of them. Who else can bring up a topic of discussion that goes on for three hours until it's covered to death, the lesson learned, the world made right again and you sent off into it to flourish?

What would you do without friends- I never want to know.