I have two best friends. One I met while I was in junior high, almost 30 years ago now. We were as thick as thieves well into our twenties. When my grandmother died unexpectedly, she sat beside me in the family pews at the funeral, and cried almost as hard as I did. These days, we rarely talk, and even more rarely see one another, even though we only live about an hour apart. We just grew in different ways, and have different kinds of lives. Still, if one of us needed the other for anything, we’d be there in a heartbeat. After a long period of time not seeing each other, I was in the hospital waiting room when she gave birth to her first child. Much later, after not seeing her for 5 years or so, she came to my second wedding in 2005. She said she wouldn’t have missed it for the world, and it was like not a day had passed since we’d seen each other. We haven’t seen each other since, but I know we will sooner or later. :)
My other best friend and I met when we purchased brand new town-homes right next to each other, back when I was just 21 years old. It was a brand new neighborhood, we were all young, and our row of town-homes was the only one around for a little while, creating a unique neighborhood atmosphere… one in which everyone knew each other. We partied together (we once had a keg party at our communal mailbox!), relied on each other to help us when we got locked out, banded together to confront our builder about problems, etc. But we weren’t really friends. One night, after another neighborhood get-together at her house, I offered to stay behind and help her clean up. During the course of that night, we became friends for life. We talked into the wee hours, and I think I came home as the sun came up. We’ve been best friends ever since.
I was one of the first people to see her daughter when she was born, and she was actually in the delivery room with me when I had all three of my daughters. Her daughter and my oldest daughter are very close friends in their own right, in addition to our whole families being “family friends”. We both moved away from that neighborhood, across town from each other, into our first single-family homes, and still the friendship flourished. She and I have outlasted both of our first marriages, seeing each other through painful divorces. Of course, she was at my second wedding, too. I then moved to another town almost an hour away. While that seriously impacted the frequency of our visits, our friendship hasn’t changed. I don’t think there’s anything we can’t talk about, or anything we keep from each other. Maybe more importantly, we make each other laugh so hard we cry. Frequently.
I find it interesting that over the long course of these two friendships, my two best friends have probably only seen each other 5 times or so. They don’t really mesh with each other. The did come together to throw me a joint baby shower when I was pregnant with my first, though!
Sorry. I didn’t mean to write a freakin’ novel!
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