I make friends like other people make relationships. I find one, and I love it. I don't have a gaggle of friends, although I do have a ridiculous number of Facebook friends (I call them acquaintances). I do however have 3 friends whom I shall die calling friends. I wholeheartedly love these people.
Friend 1- I met this friend at work of all places many years ago. Now, she and I knew each other before. We were acquaintances. We would say hi and wave, sometimes. We could remember each other's names. No big deal. Then, someone somewhere thought it would be a great idea to put us together at work. Repeatedly. A lot. And we became ridiculous. We were the mean girls. We picked. We were loud. We had a blast. We followed each other department to department. We shared our children with each other. TO THIS DAY, I love her with all my heart. I can go months without speaking to her and we pick up right where we left off, usually making fun of someone we mutually know. We have inside jokes, like a giraffe, where a single picture can prompt a belly laugh and a phone call. I can tell her everything, and trust she will tell me when I'm making a truly awful mistake. I'm sure I don't tell her enough, because as she points out I rarely answer my phone, but if you're reading this my dear, I am honored to have you tell me when I'm an idiot.
Friend 2- I have a tendency of making friends at work. I throw myself into everything I do with reckless abandon. So, no surprise, I met this friend at work too. My first real job. And wouldn't you know, we ended up reorganizing a porn room together. Now listen, I worked in a video store. We had an "adult room". I didn't simply drag her to one of those places and make her play with porn. We were being paid to do it. And you'd be surprised how well you can bond with someone when you are knee deep in pictures of naked women. Any person who can look at pictures of naked women with you and discuss where you can find those shoes and which hairstyles would look best on you, is a forever friend. Luckily, this friend married my cousin. Which makes her family. And I made her Child 1's godmother, just so she couldn't get away. We have been friends for 13 years, and I wouldn't trade a day of it. I also go long periods of time without talking to her, because well, we are grown ups and have to do stuff. She's my friend I go to when I need grounded. When life is overwhelming and I need reminded of just how good things really are, I seek her out. She's also my friend who I call when other friends do something incredibly stupid, because we share the same opinions of people. And when Friend 2 reads this (if she reads this), I know I'm not always a great friend because children are overwhelming and suck the life out of you, but I love you too.
Friend 3- Please tell me by now you won't be surprised when I say I met this friend at work too. HA. Where I live, we have a huge yearly event. The Little League World Series. People from all over the world bring their children here to play baseball. Awesome, huh? No. Just no. It's loud, it's crammed, no one speaks English, and someone has to manage all these people when they get dehydrated or fall down the hill. BRING IN FRIEND 3! That's right. We met while working Little League as "ambulance drivers" (or in this case, really bored EMT's who smoked a lot and told awful stories). There are incredible amounts of down time working these events. We get bored. He managed to keep up with my insanity. We made jokes out of everything, he watched me learn how to juggle, and made fun of everything myself and everyone else did. I am most consistent with this friend, because we bitch together. Our lives run parallel. If it happens to me, chances are it's happened to him too. With the exception of children, which he claims he never wants, we are identical. We suffer the same issues, we live in the same situations, we commiserate. I refer to him as my "gay best friend" although he lives with a girl he will probably one day marry. I have not seen this friend in many years, as he got some harebrained idea to run off to the big city and live a life involving more money. And it may be many weeks between any interaction, simply because we have nothing new to say, but when I do say anything to him, it's usually dumb. Thank you friend 3 for just being dumb with me. For actually thinking I can do something with my dumb ideas and not talking me out of them. For encouraging me to do said dumb things. And for reading this and honestly telling me what you think, seeing as how you are honest to a fault. And I can never here a Sublime song without thinking of your dumb ass singing it.
I have more friends. I really do. And those friends are ones I may keep forever too. But these 3 are ones who constantly remind me of what I used to be, how far I've come, and where I need to go. And with regularity they often tell me where I ought to go......
It's the middle of the night, which is a time I do my best thinking. And while playing on Facebook I realized I know a lot of people. I like a lot of people. I value the opinion of many of them. I would go out of my way to make some of them happy. I read their blogs. I follow their lives. I love their children. I share my life with them. But these 3 are ones I can't imagine my life without. No matter where life takes me, I'll share it with you and drag you along with me.
The rest of you have to come along too, because seriously, my life is a riot. Just ask these 3.
(Please note these friends are not listed 1-3 based on preference, I actually listed them alphabetically in my head as to not show favoritism to one over another. I am a strange one sometimes.)
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