There are friends you will encounter with whom you will not spend a lifetime. They are Friends of Convenience, Drinking Buddies, Friend of a Friend, or the Cool Co-Worker. They make moments in your daily grind tolerable. Its not that these aren’t nice people, deserving of your time and energy. You just don’t hear and feel that “click”. So you don’t put in a concerted effort into developing a long and lasting friendship.
And then there are those friends who you once felt the energy, but time, space and born-again Christians have come between you. You still send them love, a religious Christmas card, and wish them well.
And then there are those friends who stick it out and see it all. They have seen you laugh and sob. Sometimes in the same night. They have watched you scrape coins for a loaf of bread and drank Don Simon out of a box with you. They can match your bathroom humor AND your knack for imitating aging gay drama queens. They watched you hit on the wrong guy, ignore the nice guy, obsess over the unattainable guy, and finally love the right guy. They told you your crack was burning when you brave to bare it at a nude beach. They have the WORST blackmail photos of you in their possession. They visit you to rub your feet and mop your floors when you are eight months pregnant and preparing for your husband’s deployment.
And do they agree with you no matter what? Hell no. Damn them. They offer their opinions that (god forbid) don’t mesh with yours. They aren’t always subtle. They dish out unsolicited advice. They point out your shortcomings exactly when you don’t want to hear it. They go way beyond the hypothetical limits of a polite friendship and into territory only family belongs. But you let them because well, they are family. And because you’ve done it to them, and might again in the future. It gets messy. It can result in a knock down, drag-‘em-out war of the words. But in the end, you learn way more about yourself and the world than you do from your Happy Hour acquaintances.
But despite AND because of all that, you have developed a Lifelong Friend.
I am fortunate and grateful to have a few lifelong friends. But this is a tribute to the one who is having a significant birthday in a couple of weeks that I unfortunately can’t witness.
Happy Birthday my dearest and most unique Liz. I will be thinking about you and wish I could be with you. If I were, I’d give you my best Ethel Merman, a box of Don Simon and a heartfelt hug. You know the kind.
