April 11, 2010

The most valuable experience in a lifetime is friendship! There are many different kinds of friends; best friends, casual friends, work friends, party friends and childhood friends. You have some friends that you laugh with all the time, and you have other friends that are amazing listeners and full of wisdom. You also have friends that you like to party with, but they aren't interested in your problems or your feelings, they just want to have fun. Sometimes you have friends at work that could turn into a best friend, and there are others that you know if you ever left to work somewhere else, you would only hear from them for a few months and the friendship will fade away.

Then there are childhood friends, who know you all your life. They knew you when you had perky breasts, they knew you when you before you had breasts. These are the friends that understand you and understand the way you tick. Usually life carries on, and you don't have the time to keep in touch daily or weekly like you used to....sometimes the weeks turn into months that turn into years, and before you know it could be a decade or two before you actually talk again. Funny thing about these friends is you can call them up out of the blue and there is no awkwardness..like time stood still. They sound the same, you just pick up where you left off and they still love you, they still thought of you all the time, they still talked about you to their 'new' friends about things you used to do. It amazes me every time this has happened and you wonder why you let time pass. Why didn't you make the time to call. Why didn't you make the time to visit.



I have had a few examples of this happening the past years. I had a friend, (I will call C ). C used to date my brother back in the 70's, they broke up and we continued to be friends. The last time I remember seeing her was when my daughter was christened as C is her Godmother. Our lives got busy. I bought a house, was working full time, not sure exactly what I was doing that kept me busy, but before you know it almost 10 years had passed. I had tried to call her a few times and left voicemails for her over the years, and eventually stopped calling thinking that there was a reason she wasn't calling me back.



One day I called, and she answered the phone. Her voice was familiar and the same. She was so happy to hear from me. She never received the messages due to her teenage son's deleting them, but within 5 minutes of talking we were back to the way we were a decade ago! We were laughing, and it was so easy to talk to her. These are the friends that understand you and were there during your divorce, you have a history that could never be replaced.



I have another friend that I have known since I was 4. We played Barbie's together, hide n seek, we went through puberty together and she was even there when I had my first kiss. The best thing ever is she married my cousin, which means our kids are cousins. We had dreams when we were young to buy a farm and have 100 dogs. We go months without talking to each other, and out of the blue she will call me or I will call her and it was like we saw each other the night before. Her daughter always knows she is talking to me on the phone because she is laughing abnormally louder than usual!



Over the years, friends come and go and you realize they weren't really friends, they were acquaintances. I had one friend who I found rolling on the floor naked with my husband! I had another friend that was actually living with my husband after he left me and 'living in an apartment with a friend from work'. This 'friend' was still going out with me to bars, listening to me vent, and was even by my side when he was moving his stuff out of the apartment. It wasn't announced that they were actually together until about 3 months after he left. I think because of this I have had a really hard time trusting and making new friends over the past 25 years and my 'old' friends have been the only friends I trusted.



I have another friend, I call her BFF. She isn't complicated. She understands me. I understand her and if she makes me angry, I tell her. If I make her angry she tells me. She doesn't get an attitude or snotty or give silent treatments. We both hate little mind games. If she offends me I tell her to f%*&off. I tell her to 'f$%* off, but in a nice way'...she says the same to me.



I have hooked up with old friends on Facebook, that I lost contact with after the 'divorce'. These were friends that I lost as part of the divorce settlement so to speak. Unfortunately one of my long lost friends died of cancer about a year after she found me on Facebook. I am glad we had the opportunity to talk again, clear the air so to speak, and straighten up some of the misunderstandings that surrounded the 'situation'. Soon after my friend died, I hooked up with her sister who was a good friend of mine back before the divorce, and she was part of the settlement too. We talk daily on Facebook as if the last 25 years never happened.



I am still a little apprehensive, but I have let my guard down after all these years and have made a few really good friends who I can trust, who are caring...friends for life! FFL Nothing will every replace my 'old' friends, but life is too short to not let myself have friends that I can trust. It is a relief that my 'new' husband has some integrity and I don't have to worry about him rolling naked on the floor with any of my new friends.