A Matter of Friendship

We ate grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with tall glasses of milk. Messy but delightfully warm and delicious, and than it would be back outside, sometimes to swim, sometimes to play in the snow depending upon the season we were in.

She was my best friend before we grew apart, before my best friend became someone else, the person who knew me best until she stopped really knowing me at all. And yet, I can still remember so many minute details. Her Dad's ham radio, the way her Mother styled her silver gray hair, the exact layout of her house.

Small things like eating breakfast in the morning, her cereal never adulterated with milk. Or flying down the hill on our bikes like blurs, careless until we fell, skinning our knees and elbows and whatever else the gravel managed to grab.

We had our good moments, and our bad.

I remember a snowball fight ending once very badly, though I can't remember which of us were really to blame for it beginning. I do know however that it was I who dumped a significantly large shovelful of snow upon her head.

Shocked, cold and crying she ran into the house while I trudged slowly behind her, secretly sorry but feeling justified all the same. Either way it was a turning point, the first real wedge in what had been a solid friendship.

We were changing.

Getting older, seeing opportunity in new people, and beginning new friendships. A new grade, a new school, a transition from child to young adult, it seemed the right thing to do to let some things go, to forget to be friends as unintentional as it all seemed to be.

As an adult, I find I don't make friends as easily as I used to. Much more reserved than I ever was, and less willing to go out on a ledge and suggest the idea of going out to lunch, or sitting down to a cup of coffee, it doesn't seem as simple as throwing out the idea of being friends to make friends.

There are excuses as well... Being a parent, having a job, maintaining a household, or having a significant other, there are far too many reasons why there are simply not enough hours in a day to have more than one or two close personal friends.

But I am blessed with two such people, that regardless of the number I choose to call friend, quality in my case certainly exceeds quantity. To both Brenda and Sue, I say thank you. Your friendships are among the most treasured of my possessions...

Still I am reminded of a song we used to sing in Brownies, never mind that I never made it to full fledged Girl Scout.

Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other gold.

You don't need me to tell you how true of a statement this really is. You remember friends you've lost through nothing more than neglect as well as I do. Our only difference, is that I'm the one talking about it now.

I talk with reason however. A random copy on an email that results in a new old friendship taking blossom. And I find that regardless of how long a friendship has laid dormant, it takes only a few simple words to wake it from slumber. And I think to myself how wonderful this is, to be given a new opportunity once more, to meet again later in life and learn what has changed, and what has not.

I don't know if friendships are the same for men. But I do know that as women we need the relationships we forge between true sisters, and the sisters we create from our hearts. No one can make you feel better than a friend who knows you. Who is there to laugh and take joy from every good and wonderful thing to come your way and who stands strong and firm when gale force winds threaten to take you apart.

In whatever way we choose to be friends, be it through daily phone calls, once in a while emails, or the pages I leave her on this blog for you to read, I hope that if you take anything away from me at all, it's the warmth of unconditional friendship in the true spirit of which it's given.