My "doing life together" friend...

I cannot tell you how fun it is to really think about the friendships, the women, who make up my community. It is certainly interesting trying to fit people in categories-to boil them down a little to make a simple blog entry.

This friend I have known about for a almost 12 years. I have seen her, had little chit chat conversations, talked about weather and children and houses.

About 3 and half years ago, when I was pregnant with Mahone, I really started talking to her. I was home and she was home and as the weather became nicer, well, the chit chat became more frequent, the conversations a little more personal and the tea began to flow.

Well, considering she lives about 3 doors down from me, you can imagine how it really didn't take much for a casual-"I know you" to become a real friendship.

She has two girls, older than my boys. They have very much developed a sibling relationship in which they are the older sisters. That comes with all the love and all the fights typical of any sibling connection. They cuddle Mahone, fight over who can hold his hand and the oldest has even "babysat" ( I say that loosely given that we were literally down the road, but hey when you are 12 and someone pays you $10.00, it is babysitting!). The children love each other and I love that they do.

We really do life together. 


I see her almost everyday. We have tea together almost every day. We talk about what we are having for supper, I let her know my daily weekend plans, we look at the flyers together every week and decide where we will shop and what errands we need to do. I am there for the birthday parties, as her assistant-she is there for mine. We watch movies on Saturday night at my house. The husbands visit at her's. I look through a billion paint chips to help choose the perfect bathroom color. She helps me re-arrange my living room weekly. She has seen me in my pajamas, with all my hair sticking up and no bra!!! I have sat on her bed on Sunday morning as she wakes to watch Cornation Street. Yeah.... life together!!!


The friendship really is based in the everyday. We have opposing views on tons of "deeper" issues-a woman's right to choose-I am pro-choice, whether a mom should/can work outside the home (obviously since I am doing it, I support that choice), the purchase of more expensive, but ethically made products/food (she LOVES Wal-Mart) and the list goes on.... 


She is an unbelievable helper, she is an unbelievable mother and someone who loves on my children, she is consistent and always there, she is so fun and loves to dance and sing. 

She is a neighbor, she is a friend, she is family.

Me.

Friendship

So when I was reading my blog entry about my "Diana", I thought I could write a entry like that for other friends as well. And when I shared with my "Diana" what I had written, she was so touched that I would write about her that I thought..I don't think we communicate the "heart" stuff real well... or at least I don't communicate the heart stuff real well.

So I will write a series (a short one considering just how many really close friends can one have) on what some of my friendships have meant to me. In thinking about this series, it has been really interesting to really see the uniqueness of each friendship and their role in my life, and how so often it reflects the stage of life.

So today, I am talking about a friend I met about 5 years ago. We attended the same church and for the first little while, I never really connected with her. We attended the same bible study and eventually they held it at their home and somehow, over time, we started connecting. Our church had a winter thing at a farm and I invited her to go with her children. She came and I think we spent every Saturday together...and lots of other days as well... for 2 years. The friendship began based on having someone for our children to play with, and became of course something deeper...

She was then, and still is, the person I could tell my deepest darkest secret to. She is completely trustworthy; I won't feel any judgement, any condemnation; She isn't going to hold it over me, remind me often, "rub it in".

Somehow our friendship became that really....I think (I hope) I was that person for her as well. We shared lots of fun times, lots of "darker" times, lots of family birthday parties, births, drama!!!!

We were/are very different in personalities, opinions, lifestyles, but somehow it worked. She inspired me in so many areas and continues to do so.

So she moved....not far, but you know how it is with kids, and working full time and life.... that "not far" mids' well be 2000 miles away. And while I rarely see her, rarely talk to her, am truly not involved with her life at all.... well, there are times I long for her. Sound a little weird-maybe so, but that is the only word I have for it. There are times I just need to tell someone that one not great thought that keeps running through my head, that one fear I have for my child, that one marriage issue that just lurks.....

My life is full; her life is really full. I think I cannot be the friend I need to be, the friend she needs me to be with the distance and our lifestyle (being working all week and spending weekends at an arena somewhere!), so I exit, I keep in touch through the computer, through this blog thing. And while I get it in my brain-I get all the logical factors-the heart I think just misses her.

Me.

PS: check her out in blog land. She really is doing some neat living....

 www.proudtobecountry.blogspot.com

She really is my Diana......

If I am even close to being Anne....

So I have this friend... well, even friend sounds too casual, too insignificant. She is someone I have only known for maybe 2 years, but really-a lifetime. We joke that we share the same brain and are in fact only 1 person. It is a joke, but so real at the same time. I have seriously never had a friend like her...and I don't mean that in a negative way against any of my current friendships or even friendships past-they are all dear to me for lots of reasons, but somehow she is different.

You see I don't always like who I am (and trust me, there are lots of reasons for that-and a post for another day), but I like who I am with her. I never feel judged, never feel "not enough", never feel like I should be better, be something, someone different. She is totally accepting, and believe me, she has seen some not so pretty parts of my personality-the mean side, the petty side, the jealous side, the perfectionist, the controlling nature-yeah, she has seen it all!!! and somehow I am okay with that, and thankfully so is she.

She perhaps is the most thoughtful person I have ever been around...and not just towards me, towards everyone. She has the ability to remember the smallest detail of something you said, bring it up again to you in conversation, remember to ask about it, tell you she is thinking of you, empathize, buy something for you because you mentioned one time in passing it was your favorite childhood candy-she really is that person. A little too good to be true right??? I kid you not.

So really I should not have been surprised. I should have expected what I found on my desk today when I came into work. She has that habit-finding the neatest things in who knows where that I would never think of getting myself, but they are perfect-exactly something I didn't even know I wanted or loved!!! But today, well, it takes the cake, and not just because it was amazing, so unbelievably generous, so so something I desperately wanted, but because she knew my longing and upset wasn't even really about the THING, it was deeper......

Yes, you are looking at the blush tint-you know the one. I don't think I need to re-tell that incident-thank goodness because I am truly just getting over it... You see it really wasn't about the blush or the money wasted, or the mess in my room or on my bag. It was my bitterness really that I felt I had NOTHING of my own-NOTHING SACRED. My room is occupied most nights by my children, my house is a nice mixture of toys and children's books, scattered with actual furniture, my free time is spent entirely with them, I share my tea in the morning, my juice at supper..... well, I think you get the picture... and while I may not have said all of that to her, I think she got it. I think she knows me well enough to know my true sadness-well anger really-was deeper and I think she wanted to make it better.......and oh, she did....

So you see, she is my Diana-kindred spirit (even if she really doesn't even like Anne of Green Gables!!!)

Me