Girlfriends
Three things I have found
to never fail me…Flip flops, old worn-in jeans, and my girlfriends. Armed with
these, any situation can be weathered. Flip-flops are comfortable, pack well,
and come in all colors. Jeans never wear out… the older they get the better
they are and they go with anything. A weathered pair of jeans adds a touch of
solid practicality and a little fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants attitude. My
girlfriends, my real girlfriends, that is, I have, thankfully, discovered over
the last several years. “Friends”… seems like such a simple word…it’s uttered
everyday to almost every person imaginable. It’s funny, I used to think that my
“friends”, I mean real friends, were the people that I laughed with,
talked to, and hung out with. Now, as I am older, I have realized that friends
are the people that touch your heart. You can spend hours with them doing
nothing at all and it can be the best time of your life, just because it was
with them. They're the people you share your secrets with, have similar
interests with, cry with, laugh with, and just have fun with. They don't judge
you or make you change. They accept you exactly as you are. They look at you and
you look at them and see a great person…you don’t see good and bad qualities.
You just love spending time together. It’s a complete acceptance of another
person.
Consistently seen are buddy
movies, pals-til-the-end, and coming of age stories that represent the strong
bonds between men. Then there are the women… portrayed as being petty, they
back stab act catty and would abandon another for the drop of a man or anything
else that seems to catch their eye. THIS, I have found… is a CROCK!
In my totally unscientific
research into the issue, I have found that women are the creators, the
protectors and the healers of friendship.
Women create friendship opportunities. We suggest get
togethers, shopping excursions, Road Trips, and coffee dates. We remember
birthdays and anniversaries and make sure to stay connected to aunts, uncles,
and grandparents. Woman call each other on the phone for no reason, meet for
coffee, lunch, and shop just for the heck of it. In troubled times woman rally
around and support each other. Woman share things.
Someone once said “Men talk about three things:
Money, sports, and sex. They exaggerate how much money they make, pretend to
know more about sports than they do and lie about sex. Women talk about only
one thing: sex. And they never lie…” Well, while women definitely talk
about a lot more than sex, we seldom lie. Yes, we may lie to our bosses,
mothers, and our significant others, but not to each other. To lie to a
girlfriend is simply missing the point.
Girlfriends don’t love you
because you are good or rich or beautiful. They don’t love you because you have
something to offer or coat tails for them to ride on. They love you because you
are you, because you love them. They love you because in trying times you cry
and scream, and then laugh about it later. They love you because you get up and
go to the gym like you ought to. They love you because instead of going to the
gym like you ought to, you stay home and organize all of your pictures.
When you love him,
they love him. When you hate him, they hate
him. And when you love him again, they miraculously
forget all of the bad things you said. Not necessarily because they agree with
you, but because they understand.
Girlfriends are more
comfortable than old warn in jeans, they are more reliable. The older they get,
the more comfortable they are. They keep you fashionable, keep you from being
too vain, while letting you be as crazy as you want. Like flip flops, they can
walk through the mud with you and come out undamaged. They keep you from taking
yourself too seriously.
Woman may have
developed these complex ties to better care for the future and to look out for
each other. Or because it was the best way to get the work done. Maybe we
cling together to survive emotionally in a male-dominated world. Or it could
just be that it’s a gift from God… because She likes us best.
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the
sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater
part of life is sunshine. -Thomas Jefferson
