You Gotta Have Friends

This weekend is the annual reunion of Grammy's college friends and I am looking forward to seeing some of the best girl friends anyone could hope for. It got me to thinking about friendship this past day or so. Some people gather friends like my furniture gathers dust...quickly and without effort. I, on the other hand, tend to keep most people at arm's length. Not that I am not friendly. My dad, the small town politician, took me on the campaign trails with him, so I am at ease with perfect strangers. I guess I just don't care to share my every thought and feeling with more than a handful of people, if that many. Makes me an awful facebooker.

A lay person talked to our children at church about friendship last Sunday. He made some great points. Friends are people you know and spend time with. Friendship is an important relationship. So that best explains why I consider myself very blessed to have a few important friendships.

This first (I know it's corny) and best friend I have is Papallama. I love spending time with him, and I can trust him with every thought and emotion I may have, whether I am right to think or feel that way or not. He's my go-to guy for advise and support, and we have alot of fun most of the time. When we're not having fun, I couldn't think of a better person to be miserable with. Ha!

Two other dear friends are Mama Cat and Mama at Law. They also are two people I love hanging out with and who listen and want to know about my comings and goings. But they are also daughters, and there are things that mothers and daughters aren't meant to share.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention work friends. Not colleagues, but friends. Ms. M is one such friend. In another time, another life, we might not have matched up, but the years we spent together at a little brick schoolhouse were some that I will always treasure. She has that one virtue that any friend of mine is going to need...she is a good listener. I hope I was for her, too. And I knew as she did, that the thoughts we shared were for our ears only. Good friends will honor that, no matter what.

Then there are school friends, like my sisters that I am meeting up with this weekend. We shared a special time in our lives and had a camaraderie that is only experienced by living with a person for years and seeing them at their best and their worst. They are the ones who can send you into a side splitting laugh at the drop of a hat. That's why I am going to spend a whole weekend away from my best friend to see my girl friends. Plus, I will probably need to defend myself when the storytelling commences...