I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends – John Lennon

So I have been thinking about my friend. You see I have a friend that I’ve known for a little while…since kindergarten in 1974. We have seen each other on a fairly regular basis for our entire lives. Either in person or online the last few years we have always been in contact. She is someone who knows more about me than almost anyone on the planet and tomorrow she is turning 40. Big day, broo ha ha, whatever, how is this about me?!? Oh yeah, I’ve been thinking about why we have remained close for 35 years and I’ve come up with a few things that has made our friendship last all these years.

1. She’s not easily offended.

This doesn’t seem like a big thing but I have a tendency to say thing that are horrible. Not just horribly inappropriate but just down right horrible. Many people state a caveat before introducing me to their friends and families. My son, nieces and nephews frequently ‘warn’ people before family functions. I’m sure at some point, actually various points, I’ve offended her but in all these years we’ve never fought, stopped talking or gone long periods being ‘distant’. There has never been any drama in our relationship.

“I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.”
– Walt Whitman

2. It doesn’t matter.

Our lives are very different and always have been. I married young and had a kid. She didn’t. She has a head full of grey hair, I have 2. She has a waist the size of Scarlett O’hara and I have too many spanx to count. The differences have never pulled us apart. I’m sure at some point I’ve been self absorbed about my kids or something (knitting, yoga etc) that means nothing to her and we remain friends. She has horrific taste in music but I see it as a fault of her upbringing and too many years being forced to listen to the Irish Rovers.

“The best mirror is an old friend.”
– George Herbert

3. We have different friends.

Although we have friends in common, we also have friends that the other person doesn’t know (or in some cases care to know). Our friends in common are dear to both of us but we have separate relationships with them. We’ve never had a jealous moment in all those years except when ONE of us was invited to a certain person’s house for pool parties and the other wasn’t and a true friend would have stayed away in protest instead of going to said pool party….but I digress.

“One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.”
– Clifton Fadiman

4. We laugh.

We laugh at the same things and get each others sense of humor. While other people may find some of the things we laugh at grossly inappropriate we get why the other person is laughing way before the other people in the room. We spent a majority of our high school reunion looking at each other from across the golf course and giggling because we were thinking the exact same thing.

“Friends are the Bacon Bits in the Salad Bowl of Life.”
– unknown

5. Shakespeare

We’ve been each other date to more festivals, plays and musicals than I can count. She’s the first person I think of when I see the new Shakespeare plays that are running. I can call her and say “what’s that song from…” and she’ll say “In Your Eyes, you idiot” before I finish the sentence.

“I count myselt in nothing else so happy
As in a soul rememb’ring my good friends.”
– William Shakespeare

6. The past.

We’ve laughed until we almost pee our pants. We’ve seen each other drunk and held each others hair back. We’ve seen each other with broken hearts and in love with the wrong person. We’ve gone through mall hair, leg warmers and white pumps with socks. We’ve misjudged each other and underestimated the power and strength of our friendship. We’ve been through 13 first days of school, 3 husbands, 6 sibling relationships, countless shakespeare plays and parents that are a blog post all on their own.

“You can always tell a real friend: when you’ve made a fool of yourself he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job.”
-Laurence J. Peter

7. The future.

I can see us living it up in a retirement home, with her making sure people understand “Oh she’s not senile she’s always been a b***h”…..oh sure one of us is going to die first but I’m hoping it’s in about 50 years and hopefully it’ll be her cause otherwise how can I be sure they play Bay City Rollers at her funeral?

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost

She’s my gold. Stay gold, old friend, stay gold.