Aww, gee…
Lately, I’ve been thinking about my relationships–specifically my relationships with other women. It’s a complicated, delicate balance for most people, but I’ve had the same best friend since we were 7 years of age. We met the summer before 2nd grade and I had just moved into town.
Kim and I have had our share of ups and downs and after this long we know when to just leave the other alone. I attribute this to the fact that we were both told, ‘It takes a friend to keep a friend’.
It’s true. What does that mean? Well, to me it means that you have to be honest. When you’re stressed out and your best buddy calls you with a challenge or they’re stressed out also…the best thing to do is listen as much as you can. Sometimes you have to tell her, ‘I can’t listen to you right now.’ This doesn’t mean you don’t want to listen; it means you CAN’T listen. You don’t have the tools available to be empathetic because you’re just too stressed and you’ve got to nurture yourself.
It takes a long time to get to that point with a friend, I know. Still, I think that if you care about the friend, you’ll find ways to cultivate that relationship.
It goes beyond having a love for shopping or make up or whatever else people think women are supposed to enjoy. You need a solid foundation. Everyone isn’t going to fit.
You have to try them on for a while and see if you like the way things work. If you don’t have a common ground you’ll find out soon enough. Making friends is a snap. Just start talking and you’ll see that you get along just fine. The thing is, you’re not going to move past that honeymoon phase if you don’t talk about the real stuff.
Your morals (Kim and I both have loose ones), your beliefs (we have a strong faith), your interests (we both have varied interests…most of them involve gawking at good looking men) , sense of humor (we’ve been at it a long time) and so many other intangibles make your friendship long lasting and interesting.
Sure, we have often sat in the same room not talking to one another for hours on end, but it’s not because we have nothing to say to one another, it’s that we’re comfortable enough with one another that we DON’T have to speak. That’s the good stuff.
We send one another stupid cards, we talk on the phone about nothing and everything.
The last conversation we had was filled with the usual catching up stuff, but we ended up talking about how G-d is looking down at us saying that classic Professor Marvel line from “The Wizard of Oz”: “Poor kid. Hope she gets home okay”…’cause he knows we’re usually so preoccupied that we’re bound for disaster…Also I suspect because G-d knows it would make us laugh. He’s that kind of friend.