"Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other, gold."
My daughter is closing in on the end of her 6th year and already I've had my hands full with "playground drama." At 6 it's easy for little girls to decide they have a new BFF every day and along with that comes hurt feelings for the ones left out. The other day, as my daughter stood in the mirror asking about how she can get rid of her chubby cheeks, (which I routinely enjoy eating as a snack, ;) I was saddened and tried my best to NOT REACT...and to bite my tongue without going off on the little girl who told my daughter she had chubby cheeks!
I thought back to my life as a schoolgirl and suddenly I heard my dad's words.
"You will have many acquaintances throughout your life but very few friends." He said it throughout my school days when I'd complain about one girl doing this and another girl doing that to offend me. Now, on the day I'm starting college, he says it again, following up with the old adage, "If you can count your true friends on one hand, you are blessed." Talk about a downer!
There I was that fall, in 1981, already sad that my entire posse of girlfriends was dispersing...most of us going off in different directions, to different colleges, starting jobs, getting apartments, even a few preparing to marry right out of high school. Life was changing at an alarming pace for me.
How could Dad say that when, in 1981, I was a girl blessed with MANY girlfriends! Some from childhood. Others from theater and choir, some from dance class, some from my cheer squad, some from my job at the mall. Life was good. On any given weekend, I never lacked for things to do, to be sure. He's wrong. We'll ALWAYS be friends, I thought to myself, indignantly.
My mom, on the other hand, gave me sager advice. "You have no sisters, so remember that as you make new girlfriends from college and once you are into your career, some of these girls just might become like family to you someday and you will NEED them, so BE A FRIEND to them, and they'll do the same." Then she added, "Don't let petty things, especially BOYS or jealousies, come between you." Mom's words rang out truer than Dad's, thankfully.
Today, I'm blessed with a gaggle of wonderful girlfriends, from grade & high school, my old gym, my MANY jobs, neighbors, my parish, my husband's job, my daughter's school, each beautiful woman serving her own individual purpose in my life, as do I, in theirs, I would hope. A couple of them, and they know who they are, are more like sisters to me than had we emerged from the same womb.
In the old testament:Prayer of Jabez, Jabez asked the Lord to "enlarge" his territory:
‘Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!’ So God granted him what he requested.”
(1 Chronicles 4:9-10) , and God did just that.
Like Jabez, my own personal "territory" of girlfriends has been enlarged, indeed, especially since I've moved down south. When I stop to think of how I first sank into depression upon being plucked from my native Detroit, and stayed put in that tiny apartment for months like a hermit, not wishing to venture outside to see my new city, I shudder.
With this latest move I've been blessed yet again in the friendship category. Oh....I've STILL got my posse of BFFs who knew me waaaay back when. I think we all need those friends in our lives today....the ones who remember us when we were tiny little girls standing at the bus stop, dodging worms being thrown at us (NOT NAMING NAMES...OK...Marianne? lol) knees trembling as the bus swallowed us up and took us away to school. They keep things REAL for us when we become someone other than who we really are, because really, we are ALL still the same little girls we were then, only now we wear bras and makeup. ;)
When the "mean girls" came along in middle school or as we called it back then, "Junior High," here was where the first real lines were drawn in the sand....those who would stand with you and those who would join others in making fun of your....ahem, red hair and freckles.....in my case. There are those girlfriends who were with us as we made those girly rites of passages.....first crushes, first training bras, that emotional first foray into womanhood and (gasp) even our first kiss!
Then there we were, the girls we morphed into during those final years in high school and onward throughout college. Eventually, as we grew into the adult forms of ourselves, some girlfriends made the cut, others drifted down their own life paths off for no other reasons than our lives had taken different directions.My mom was right because sure enough, the friends I kept since those early years, along with those I acquired in college and throughout my career (and I've had TONS of jobs!) are STILL in my life to this day. I am blessed. These girls saw me through poor career choices, bad romantic decisions and.... as my closest friends know, my crazy "Janice-isms....the foibles they say can ONLY happen to ME. :) These were the ones there to hand me a box of Kleenex through every broken heart, a few even came along for drives in cars to "check out" where the said "ex" was spending time on the first Saturday after we broke up...OK some might call that STALKING but they'll never tell on me right? RIGHT?!! LOL. They were also there to celebrate my joy in finally finding Mr. Right and planning my wedding.
When my mom died suddenly nearly 12 years ago, they gathered in the hospital to be with me, they held my hand, they made the calls and one even brought me a Hot Fudge Sundae during Mom's visitation. They checked in on me afterward, they never dropped the ball.
After three days in labor and a scary emergency C-section, they came over, cleaned my house, brought me homemade dinner and held my newborn daughter as if she were their own child. Today my daughter has about 12 "aunts" despite the fact I have no sisters.
Sadly, a few of my friends from high school and I have already buried one of those BFFs from high school and here again, was a lesson learned about friendship as we friends showed up to decorate her house at Christmas as she suffered through breast cancer and took turns taking her to tests, treatments and such. In the end, that loss, tough as it was, taught us to appreciate each other all the more.
My daughter was surprised when I told her how MANY of those gals she now calls "Aunt" I played with and yes, even argued with, on the playground and later, in the hallways of our high school when I was just HER age and then older. And yes, sometimes I swore I'd NEVER speak to "so & so" AGAIN! Yet, some 25 + years later, there was "so & so", helping me load up the moving van and fighting back tears as I left Michigan. Thank GOD for cars, planes and technology. I can easily talk, text, or Facebook with friends to show pics of our life here in Tennessee. I can also easily hop on a plane OR make the 8 hour drive north when a friends' dad dies suddenly. Likewise my door is open to any friends who need a break after a bad divorce or just to get away from Michigan's harsh, winter weather.
Today, however, I am equally blessed with a great group of ladies I am PROUD to call my new Chatty girlfriends here in Chattanooga. Some I've met through my husband's job at VW, we were all transplants from MI and other areas, landed in this lovely, yet unfamiliar area. My new VW friends helped me navigate my way through the "Scenic City"...many times over the phone as I've frantically called from atop a mountain terrified I would plunge over. (Thanks Jen and Michelle!) Others gave us great tips for where to dine out, ride our bikes and welcomed us here (Thanks Eva!)
Then, when my daughter started Kindergarten, my circle of friends widened to include all of those wonderful school moms. Today, our kids play together, but already in the short time I've been here, these moms & I have bonded so tightly. They've helped me through TWO surgeries and a move into our current home and numerous other "dramas" in my own life they've helped me through. We go out for a few laughs and OK maybe a few glasses of wine.....we take each others' kids home if one of us is in need of time alone or otherwise in dispose....we complain about our spouses.....then in the same breath we praise these men who put up with our hijinks's! God knows what I'd have done without these ladies, each & every one of them!
When I had to leave my friends in Michigan behind I lamented I'd NEVER find friends who could know me as well, become as close to me or in whom I could confide or count on when the chips were down. Guess again. Like Garth Brooks said in his song Unanswered Prayers, "...I guess the Lord knows what he's doin' after all..."
So.....Today I send a great big THANKS, to my oldest (think longevity girls NOT age, lol) AND my newest friends, I love you ALL and know this: no matter WHERE I retire someday, I expect y'all to be in rocking chairs besides me, still spilling the dirt that makes us giggle, along with the wine that dribbles out of our glasses, due to our feeble, shaky hands. I expect to wear our red hats and purple clothing together!
