Friends and the river of life

The good Lord has given me many blessings, the best of them eternal and some pink glittery extras just for fun.  (I have totally always wanted to start off a sentence with "The good Lord has given me many blessings".  And now I did!  Thanks for being here for it.  It sounds like I need to be in a rocking chair with an afghan - that's lowercase, as in blanket, not uppercase, as in a human.)

One of those blessings that spans both the pink glittery now time and the eternal are my friends.  I have awesometastic friends.  The crap part is that they always move away!  (What!  Is it my deodorant??  Was it something I said?  I'm barely opinionated, so it couldn't be that...)

I keep a 3x5 card of a list of my homegirls who I have been close to over the years who have moved far away from me.  It's a good reminder that this world is not static.  We're passing through and going on our journey.  

Some of my lovelies grew up with me and we went to school together.  I have one dear friend who I have shared an entire life with.  We had childhood together, we went through school together,  were on swim teams together, ate midnight peanuts together, made up pretend commercials together, we even went to university together (and even got to be roommates one year).  She's a few time zones away now, but time and space can't squish a friendship that has been woven throughout a lifetime.  If you knew either one of us, you might be really surprised that we are friends because on the issues that define many people, we aren't even close.  But that doesn't matter in a friendship and it has taught me that a lot of people are missing out on wonderful people because they could never imagine being friends with someone so far outside of their usual accepted circle.  

So, moral of the story is - stop being an idiot.  That guy with the bumper sticker you hate that makes your blood boil might actually be a really cool person.  But you never took the time to figure that out because you're too busy running him off of the road.  So try it.  You might like it.  It's called being loving.

I have the loveliest of besties, too.  These people are more like sisters (and HECK, one of them IS my sister) than just friends.  Special people who were made to share things that are quite unthinkable to even barely vocalize in front of your own mirror, they work it out, laugh with you, and accept you for the 100% crazy person that you are.  They are an example of this life of Christ in the flesh - loving you, serving you, carrying your burdens with you, and praying for you.  They are those with whom you could spend entire years of your life just straight talking with and never run out of things to say.  They make you tea, encourage your eclectic ideas (and self), go shopping with you, get loud and excited with you, and even feed you.  You know who you are and I love you and I could write novels about the ways in which you are totally awesomesauce to me.

I also have divas!  My divas are an eclectic collection of extremely different and fascinating people who love each other and love to have fun.  Divas can get real, get crazy, wear wigs, cry (for joy and for weeping in restaurants over a glass of wine), get fitted for undergarments, get glittered, get sassy, make you pee your pants with laughter, and can't get past 8:30 p.m. without breaking out into hysterical uproarious conversaional topics.  If you've had a bad week, it gets cured STAT with these ladies on it.  They are those who figure on a good weekend getaway and one of the criteria is that it be far away from other people so we don't wake them up and get kicked out.  Whether you're getting kicked out of a hotel room, shopping in Chicago, going for sushi and martinis, having Christmas/lake parties or spending hours in a parking lot in the back of a minivan because you closed out Starbucks, divas are a refreshing fountain of joy in the humdrum of the everyday patterns of life.  (And for the record, just in case ya'll think I'm overboard, I couldn't drink a martini if my life depended on it, in case you were wondering what kind of a wild child I really was.)

I have had sunshiney people that walked with me through post-grad stuff, those that have trudged with me in the depths of the days of babies offering their support, their stories and their camraderie of understanding (like what it means to them right now when you explain about how in that stage of life, while you were at the mall, your offspring thought it would be a good time to take the world's biggest dump, which climbed out of the diaper, up the back, and was nary bathing the back of their little head with poo).  

There are people you found out you loved and had so much in common with too late - they moved as you were getting to know each other.  (Now who are you going to talk about triathlons and saunas with?)

There are special, lovely and generous people who come from half a world away, step into your life, brighten it up, make it lovelier (even bring you tea, teach you about foot paths, boots, and whirlies) and are whisked away, as fast as they came in.  As they do, a little piece of your life and heart flies away with them.  You're back to where you were before they arrived, but both happier and sadder for the whole thing.  

There are even cute people who send you mittens.   Homemade ones.  GLITTERY PINK ONES!!  Of course THEY are going to move away.  :(  (Now who are you going to ask your dental questions to?!)

Some go away and come back.  And you're very glad they did.  I have one friend who pops in and out of places.  (She's busy with Zumba, you know.)  

They never leave your life.  Even if they're really gone, they gave you something of themselves and you are different because of it.

Some leave because their time is up here on this earth.  It really makes me recognize that the good Lord did mean for this place to be eternal (until we screwed it up, way to go Adam - no, not the HFCS Adam, the first Adam) because saying goodbye really  just stinks. In the last few years, I've had two cousins pass on from this world at very young ages.  You never know when you'll be getting on that bus for your last trip.  I hope you've made your time and your priorities match up.

Whoever you are and wherever you fit, I'm glad you've impacted my life.  And that's enough mushy crap because you guys know I really don't have a heart anyway, it's made of rocks and ice and devoid of feelings, straight up like a drill sargent Geico commercial.

;)

Peace, love, mushy stuff and here's to good friends!
Ms. Daisy