Friendship

Thought for the day:  Friendship is not a big thing... it's a million little things. 

Okay, so maybe friendship doesn't need words. I guess it's perfectly possible to maintain a comfortable silence when hanging out with good friends, and it wouldn't kill us to keep our mouths shut once in a while. Not that Smarticus and I are ever likely to know, mind you, because for the most part, when we're hanging out with any of our friends, we're with a group of talkers, story-swappers, and laugh-until-our-sides-hurt kinda people.

Laughter is the shortest distance between friends. 

We'll be hanging out with our besties for the next four or five days, (Woo-HOO! which means I won't be online for a while.) and in anticipation of all the fun we're gonna have, it got me to thinking about friendship. What does it mean to be a friend? What does friendship mean to you? And do our expectations and criteria change over the years? (What a stupid question. Of course they do! When I was a kid, everybody was my best friend.)

Friends are the bacon bits in the salad bowl of life. 

That's a good way to put it, isn't it? Delightfully savory bacon bits. Friends are also the decadent frosting on our cake, the people we can depend on, and who can depend on us. Together, we double all our joys and halve all our sorrows. We get each other.

Good friends don't let you do stupid things... alone.

 Remember the pinkie swears of youth, the shared secrets, and the oh-so-serious ritual of becoming blood sisters and brothers?  I must confess, my girlfriend Caryl and I weren't all that keen about cutting ourselves, though. We were practically joined at the hip since we met in first grade, loved to sing together, and got into all kinds of fun mischief together for many years. So, by golly, we wanted to be blood sisters! But cut ourselves? Uh... no thanks. The guys could play mumblety-peg (Anybody remember that?) and slice themselves in the name of friendship with their ever-present pocket knives all they wanted, but us? Nuh-uh. We simply picked at our scabs until we got enough of a trickle to mix. (Hush! Same principle, right?)

No more pinkie swears as adults, but we do still share confidences and keep secrets. No more blood brothers and sisters, either. (I still have an aversion to cutting myself, and it's been decades years months days since I've had a ready supply of scabs on my knees.) But after all these years, my childhood blood sister and I still keep in touch, especially since she had some experimental (and successful!) chemotherapy a few years ago. As a side effect, she lost many of her childhood memories, so she asked me to help her fill in the blanks with her, an undertaking that's brought us both a lot of pleasure.

Friends are people who know the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you forget the words.

[morguefile]

When I was eleven years old or so, I learned a little something about friendship. It happened on a beautiful warm evening in late spring, when the scent of lilacs filled the air. My neighbor friend Diane and I were chatting, giggling, and strolling to the elementary school so we could attend a pre-teen dance there, and as was fairly common in our neighborhood, seagulls were providing background music by soaring majestically above us, and squawking their familiar cries.

BOMBS AWAY! [morguefile]

And then one of the seagulls zeroed in on us. Or to be more precise, it zeroed in on Diane. Like a miniature dive bomber, that squawking bird swooped down, and FWOP! splatted a big ol' load of multi-colored poop all over her. Unless you've experienced it, you have no idea how much poop a seagull can fwop. Or how colorful it can be. Trust me, it was a lot. And colorful. On her. On the shoulder of her shirt, and all down the front of her. I'm telling you, the expression on her face was priceless, and I, her dear sweet friend, wiped most of that nasty stuff off with my bare hands, and then oh-so-gently wrapped my lightweight jacket around her shoulders. "There, there," I crooned. "It'll be all right."

[morguefile]

Yeah, right. You guys don't know me at all, do ya?

So sue me. I laughed. I laughed my silly arse off. And then I laughed some more. Diane, alas, failed to see the humor in the situation, and insisted on going back home. So, no dance. We went back home and watched TV. I learned right there and then how important it is for friends to laugh... together.

Now, before you judge me too harshly for laughing, this is the same Diane who helped break my parents' bed, and then took off like a scared rabbit and left me to deal with the mess by myself. Besides, if the seagull had pooped on me? I would have laughed just as hard. (Come on... it was funny!)

We are best friends. Always remember that if you fall, I will pick you up... after I finish laughing.

Whether you have one or two good friends, or so many you can't keep count, nothing's more wonderful than spending time with people who get you, no matter how weird you can be. If you're very very lucky, you might even be married to one of them. (Yes, I am very very lucky.)

Best friends know how weird you are, but still choose to be seen with you in public.

[morguefile]

No matter how old we are, whether we're very young and fervently declaring our status as best friends forever five minutes after we meet...

[morguefile]

or teenagers filled with insecurities, and learning more about ourselves and the world, bonding over common interests and shared secrets...

[morguefile]

or old codgers who've shared a lifetime of memories, and a lifetime of priceless friendship...

friendship is a vital part of our lives. As tasty as they may be, we don't need bacon bits on our salads, but we do need friends.

The friends we're gonna be with for the next four or five days? The bestest. We all get along; we all get each other. We'll play a lot of games, swap a lot of lies, and boyohboy, will we ever laugh. Forget sleep, though. We aren't likely to get a lot of that, because we always squeeze as much as we can out of our time together. Like the Mertzes and the Ricardos... (Guess I'm Ethel!)

Oh, and in case you're wondering, if a bird happens to poop on any of us, you can count on me. I'm gonna laugh. And even better? So will the other three...

How about you? When you hear the word friend, is there anyone in particular who immediately comes to mind? A childhood friend... a current friend...  a blogging pal... a writing partner... or best of all... someone who's been your friend forever? Wanta tell us a little bit about that person?

               Good friends are hard to find, harder to keep, and impossible to forget.

                   I'll be back to respond to you comments next week. (If I can stay awake...)

                                        Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.