Girlfriends

My mind is swimming tonight with thoughts about friends.  My friends.  My friendships.  In the last several days I have spend more than average amount of time with my girlfriends doing girlfriend things... so my friends are on my mind.

I always dreamed about having that bosom-friend type of relationship.  The kind where you take half of the broken-in-two "Best Friends" heart necklace and she takes the other half... and you actually keep up with it and put it back together years later while you reminisce about the memories that you share.  The kind of friend that knows your embarrassing moments and inside jokes.  The kind of friend that you share secrets and clothes and every weekend night for years with.  The kind of friend that knows what you are thinking before you speak, and that you know her likes and dislikes better than anyone on Earth.  The kind of friend that is portrayed in a storybook or a fairy tale.  

When we were newly married I did not have many girlfriends.  We lived in an apartment complex where there was no one under the age of 60 besides us.  I was in college.  I dreamed of a girlfriend that I could share those early married days with.

After we had been married for a few years, we started going to a new church and joined small group of "newly married" friends.  It was wonderful!  We met on Sunday afternoons in the park to play basketball and eat picnics, we played games at each other's houses until well after midnight on the weekends, we shared garage sales and dinners and Bible studies, we helped each other move from our apartments into our first homes, and we went on trips together.  We got pregnant with our first babies in waves and shared baby showers and advise and playdates and hand-me-downs.  That was my first taste of the kind of friendship that I had longed for for years, and it was great.  Those friendships still mean the world to me, and though we don't see the friends from that era of our life very often, we always pick up where we left off when we do.

In the next stage of my life I was blessed with many girlfriends.  They were the mommy-friend type as opposed to the couple-friend type that we had had before.  It was different... life was busier, not much time for staying up late and playing games on the weekends or going on trips together... but it was good.  Though the life of raising small ones and figuring out how to be a stay-at-home mom was hard work, we shared a camaraderie in that we were all doing it together.  We played together more days of the week than not, we talked on the phone daily, we shared recipes and diets and money saving tips and child-raising ideas.  I had more friends than I ever dreamed possible.  I thought that I had figured this friendship thing out, and I thought that it would be this way forever.

Life changed and got more complicated and friendships changed and got more complicated, and I realized that the friendships that I thought would be a constant in my life were not mine to hold on to.  It was hard and painful, but I have adjusted.  

I am still not sure that the half a necklace is out there for me, but I have realized that God has many different kinds of jewels called friends for me in this stage of my life.  They range from my family to couples that we have known for 15 years that get together a few times a year for dinner and to joke about the good old days.  There are the girls that I have shared raising kids with and the ones that I am bound to because our lives' hard circumstances have been such that we hold each other up in times of trouble.  There are the friends that I know that I can call to cry on their shoulder and let them cry on mine and there are the friends that I love to share a good laugh with.  

I have realized - more than ever - that friendship is truly a gift.  It - like most things in life - is something that I do not deserve, but it is something that I am very, very thankful for.  And though I my friendships are not always like I would like them to be, I count it a privilege to have been given friends share my life with.  

A Few Of My Observations About Friendship:

(in no particular order)

* Sisters can be the worst friends when they are young but the best friends when they are grown.

* No person can meet the needs of another person.

* Sometimes I am a great friend.

* Sometimes I am a terrible friend.

* I wish that I was always a great friend.

* Good friends feel comfortable enough to wear swimsuits in front of each other.

* A friend understands when your life is "too much"... and they wait for you until it isn't.

* A true friend doesn't care if you talk to much or too little as long as you know how to listen.

* Friends don't talk about getting together in front of friends that are not invited to join them.

* It hurts - a lot - to see my friends hurt.

* Friendship is ever changing.

* I don't like when friendships change.

* A true friend does not talk about you to other friends when you are not around.

* A good friend forgives the inadequacies of her friends.

* A true friend can pick up where you left off... even if it has been years.

* Sometimes friendship hurts - a lot.

* Girlfriends are confusing.

* I am confusing.

* Expectations are a terrible thing.

* Good friends don't have expectations of each other.

* True friends makes time for each other.

* Friends help each other.

* True friends understand when they cannot help each other.

* Friends understand things that cannot be put into words.

* Friends can communicate with touches and looks when there are no words. 

* Friends help you to hold on when you don't think that you can.

* A friend can break your heart.

* There is nothing like laughing with a girlfriend.

* Friends do favors for each other and expect nothing in return.

* Friends that are family are an extra blessing.

* God gives us friends for a specific purpose, and all friendships have different purposes.

* Not all purposes are necessary forever.

* Friendships are too important to let them slip away.

* Good friends encourage you to be better.

* Daughters make pretty cool friends.

* Husbands don't make good girlfriends.

* Friends remember the little things that you love.

* Coffee is best when it is shared with a friend.