"Reminder: your girlfriends will probably outlive your husband. So find good ones."
My sides still hurt from laughing so hard! I just returned from spending a long weekend with five friends I have known since elementary and middle school. The six of us met between fourth and seventh grades. We've known each other over 30 years. It's been four years since we have all been together. That's an entire college experience. In spite of it being nearly 1,500 days since we had last seen each other, we picked up right where we left off.
Between us, we have shared marriages and divorces, births and deaths, laughter and grief, celebrations and failures. If we go way back, we've shared electric blue eyeliner, curling irons, Sassoon jeans, and lilac taffeta prom dresses. We know each other. We accept each other. We love each other.
Even though we don't experience the day-to-day with each other, like we do with our friends who are in proximity to us, we seem to have a stronger bond. I sometimes wonder if many friendships aren't born, and sustained, out of proximity and ease. Those are the friendships that don't survive change. One person may move away, or the kids no longer play on the same sports teams, or the person switches jobs, and suddenly those people who were our closest friends, the ones we saw weekly, if not daily, who knew what we did day-in and day-out, are no longer a part of our lives. Real friendships endure all of those changes, and more!
The six of us weren't always BFFs. Back in elementary school, middle school, high school and college, we drifted in and out of each other's lives, but we were always there for each other. In fact, even today, we don't all talk regularly. Life gets busy. We are wives. We are mothers. We work. Life happens. We don't know the daily inner workings of what is going on with each of us, but rather we get together every three or four years, and suddenly time and distance disappear in a nanosecond. We don't need to know what happens in the day-to-day to understand where the others are coming from in their lives, and that is what truly matters.
Last Saturday night, the firepot was lit, the wine was poured, and as we sat on the back porch talking into the wee hours of the morning, we realized that five of the six of us have already lost our fathers, yet all of our mothers are still alive. The experience we have had with our parents supports the claim that women tend to outlive men. It was a sobering thought.
At this point, we have all known each other longer than we have known our husbands. Heck, these girlfriends outlasted my first husband, saw me through my divorce, were there as I started dating and married my second husband, and are still by my side. There is a good chance that we may outlive our husbands (as our moms have outlived our dads).
My point is this: Our boyfriends and our husbands are important, but so are our girlfriends! They both play a different role (in spite of so many people who say they are married to their "best friend" -- I get that, but it's different! You know it is!). Yes, date, search for the perfect person to partner with in your life, perhaps even find a "best friend" to marry, but don't lose sight of the importance of your girlfriends in all of this. And men, you want your girlfriend or wife to have a good support team of girlfriends. Trust me! It's an outlet you want to encourage!
I brought a photo to show the girls last weekend. It was of the six of us sitting on the back porch at my parents' house. The year was 1984. Yes! 1984! We took another photo last weekend of the six of us sitting on my back porch. Thirty years have passed between when those two photos were taken. Sure, we look a little different... a bit more mature (who knows when those little lines crept onto our faces?) -- but we're still smiling and laughing! And, I wouldn't be one bit surprised if 30 years from now, in 2046, we are taking yet another photo sitting on someone's back porch. Who knows? Give us a few more years and maybe the photo will capture us sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch of a retirement home! I do know this: I love these girls, and I'm thankful to have them in my life. We all need our girlfriends. We need to make the time to maintain and cultivate these relationships in our busy, hectic lives.
What do you think? Life is busy! How do you cultivate and maintain friendships with your girlfriends?