I hosted a jewellery party last week…you know like the present day version of the Tupperware party. I was chatting with the woman who I hosted it for as she was setting up and she said, ‘you seem to have a ton of friends.’ And I agreed – I really do, I’m fortunate. Then she asked what type of relationships they were, like were they all close ones. And I stopped what I was doing and thought about it. And my response was yes. A resounding yes. I am incredibly blessed to have a multitude of very, VERY close friends.
Since then I’ve been thinking about it and how that came to be. I have a bunch of different groups of friends and they all came to me in different ways.
I have my ‘wives of the high school guy friends’ group. Which sounds inane but most of them are. I never see their husbands but we get together at least once a month for dinner (and stay tuned for our upcoming ‘Ferris Buehler’s Day Off’ day). We laugh harder than I ever thought possible.
I have my girls. They are the core of my social circle. And I persued them like you would a relationship. I knew them (also through their husbands/boyfriends) and I realized that they were amazing women and I wanted in. So we started spending time together and since then they’ve become my lifeline to sanity.
I have my mom friends. I surely wasn’t looking for any more friends when I got pregnant with Will. I’m glad I wasn’t closed off to it because I’ve met this additonal group of women who I actually see the most of now. Our kids are friends, they know exactly what I’m going through AND the beauty is, if we’d met without having kids, we would have been friends anyway.
I have work friends, women I’ve played platform tennis with for years, the girls from my baseball team, my new UrbanMoms friends and of course the strong women in my family.
They say it takes a village to raise a child….well it takes a a village to love and support the mother to raise the child in my case.
When I think about all these women though – the constant and the reason why these friendships all work and are all tight is that NONE of them are high maintenance. None of them demand daily contact or reasurrance of our friendships. I had some like that…I don’t have them anymore. It’s tiring and life is too short.
I would feel comfortable calling any one of these women at 3am and saying I need you. And any one of them would be there as fast as they could. I’ll give a Sandra Bullock’ism here….they have my back…and I have theirs.
So today – I’m just praising female friendships….and I’m hoping that you all have plenty OR at least one good, solid friend because we all need them.
Why not tell me about them here….gush a little.. and then forward this on to them. Or just take a minute today to think about how lucky you are to have them…I just did.
I still hang out with my “best friend” from grade eight…She moved away
at the end of that year, but we’ve stayed in touch. She would come
for New Year’s to our family home for many years after she moved. Now i
go the visit her every January, the same weekend. We go to the spa, and we pamper ourselves. She makes me laugh like nobody can (except my husband)…both of them can pick me up in any situation…she “gets” me , and she understands my rants about the crazy things that happen in life…and finds them hilarious… \ I’ve been in the craziest situations with her (mostly her doing), and with anybody else I wouldn’t find them amusing. Somehow with her, it never
matters…
Over Christmas I am having my “best friend” from kindergarten days out for a visit. She grew up in a family of 7 and I made the “eighth” child. I fell in love
with her whole family, all their animals, their big old rambling house, and we’ve been friends ever since. She lets me tease her constantly. I don’t know how she stands it. I guess it’s because she knows I love her dearly.
I don’t see my high school “best friend” often. We were joined at the hip through
university and in our twenties. I married. She never did. Our lives went
in different directions. I know somehow that when we retire that we’ll be
able to hang out together again. She’s very smart, travels the world constantly for
her career. I enjoy listening to her perspective on the world, and to all of her
experiences around the world. When we see each other it’s like we were
never apart. We pick up where we left off, on the corner of our old
neighbourhood street, nattering away like “two old ladies” my father would
always comment.
My now “best friend” is a lady I walk with in the neighbourhood twice a week. Fortunately she finds my husband very funny, and I feel the same about hers. It’s great when you like your friend’s “significant other”. It doesn’t always happen. She and I can have the most amazing philosophical conversations, but then laugh at the inane the next minute…then support each other through an issue…
In the meantime, I’m always e-mailing other friends who have been in and
out of my life. Obviously, distance and moving have made some friendships
more difficult to keep, but I try to make a special effort to keep them all up
and with facebook and e-mail, many of we boomers are back in touch with
many old and dear friends.
I am blessed with many friends made at many different points in my life. Some
I have kept my whole life. Some I’ve come back into contact again with facebook.
Cousins have become close close friends. I’m a lucky lady…I’ve always
had a lot of friends…they are very important to me…
“They say it takes a village to raise a child….well it takes a a village to love and support the mother to raise the child in my case.” I love that statement.
I concur, you never know which friends will stand the test of time but it’s usually not the high maintenance ones. I am happy to have those that I can count on. Forever.
Good friends are so important.
My friends are amazing, too and I’d be lost without them.
I’m happy to say I have lots of friends and foxes in my life – we don’t necessarily trade off on things like help with the children necessarily, but when we’re out spending time together, I really manage to get my head exercised… this is the best part. So many kinds of lady friends… so little time, it seems. In the last couple of years, I’ve added a whole host of ladies like you, whose faces I have yet to see in person, but whose virtual hugs I feel as much as anyone standing next to me. It’s an amazing world… nice to know you!! xox
The problem with me is that a) I didn’t grow up in Toronto and b) so many of my friends came from this little thing called blogging…so sooooooo many of my best friends do not live here. The relationships are just as important…they just take a little bit of extra work. I do have lovely lovely friends here…and they are amazing, but they are a pretty small group.
Sara- like you I have too many and am too blessed. They are everything – they show me how to be and raise me up.
I wrote about them and this says it all-
http://myfamilyisnotbroken.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/committee-of-adjustments/
your friends get so much from you, Sara, I am very sure!!! xn
absolutely baby! I almost had a picture of us in here but I couldn’t crop out the dudes properly…xx Ooooh and I owe you $$ for SC. I’m sending today!
Don’t forget the “girls I got drunk with for three months in Australia and then didn’t see for 15 years and then re-connected with and now share a love of Serbian meat and Santa Claus” friends…
🙂