Friends

One of my best friends came to visit us for a few hours yesterday.  She hasn’t been down here to see our home before, so it was a very pleasant event.  I have quite a few “acquaintances” but I don’t have many close girl friends (I can count them on one hand).  I’ve known the friend who came to visit yesterday for over 40 years.  We joke that we have to stay friends because we know too much embarrassing stuff about each other (haha).  We have also helped each other, been there for each other, through so many tough times we have lost count.  Yet we don’t see or talk to each other very often.  There were times over the past 40 years when we would only get together for a good visit once a year – and we worked in the same facility and lived only ~2 miles apart.  Life can get in the way when you are married with children (or child).  But when we would get together, we would catch up quickly, and it was as if we were never apart.  That’s the wonderful thing about good friends.

And then there have been friends who passed through my life but didn’t stay.  When I think back to why they didn’t stay in my life, it seems that those friends were there for a particular “point in time” or event, but we didn’t really have that much in common or have the same basic interests or values.  We would “click” for a while and then clash in some basic way.  Or there was a betrayal that we couldn’t or wouldn’t get past.  Or we really didn’t like each other’s spouse or significant other, which can make friendship difficult.  I can think fondly of them, for their contribution to that time of my life, but I don’t have any interest in trying to rekindle the friendship. 

Unfortunately, I don’t have any close girl friends down here - they are all more than 300 miles away, but only an email or phone call away.  There are women I like down here, and with whom I have some shared interests – but they are part of “couple” friends or acquaintances.  Given a chance and some nurturing one of them could be a close friend, but it seems that neither of us has the time right now.  Maybe we will, maybe we won’t.