Girlfriends

I cannot imagine my life without girlfriends.

Girlfriends get you.  They laugh with you.  Cry with you.  Listen to you, even when you talk too much.  Girlfriends drink sissy beer and think ice cream cones are a suitable lunch.  They teach you how to tackle yard sales and Chico's sales.  They laugh at your forgetfulness because they too are forgetful.  Without girlfriends I may not have survived high school or motherhood.  And I would not have a trunk filled to the brim with memories that I cherish.

In the past I spent several years without girlfriends in my day to day life.  We moved.  They moved.  My girlfriends became scattered.  Fallen rose petals picked up by the wind and carried to far off places, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Maryland, Ohio and Connecticut.  Some I lost touch with completely, others were only a phone call or an email away.  However the absence of their daily presence left a void that I didn't know how to fill.

At one point The Kid offered to run an ad in the local newspaper to find me a "shopping buddy."  It was an act of self preservation on his part.  He hates to shop.  But girlfriends can't be found on Craig's list or through an ad in the local paper.  Girlfriends are treasures stumbled upon in unlikely places: a high school lunch room, a church event, a swim meet, a co-worker, at the end of a country lane, the neighbor across the street or the back yard fence, even on the internet.  In due time I managed to fill that void with Floridians transplanted from Iowa and Michigan and Pennsylvania lake dwellers who like to have fun.

It's a known fact, you can't have enough girlfriends, both old and new, at all ages and stages of your life.  They make the good times better and the bad times tolerable.  Some share your past others your present and the most precious of all share both.