I'd include photos here, of our parents and us, but that could be trouble. Instead, I'll share one of our favorite places:
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| The Lawdy Mercy, Garden City Beach, S.C. |
All friendships are blessings--some of the greatest in this life. Whether old or new, friends bring color and relief and magic to our everyday spinning through space. But for today, here's to life-long friendships, and life-long friends!
10 Things I Love About Life-Long Friends:
1. They don't let you lie to them.
When you've been friends so long that you learned to potty-train together, you forfeit all subterfuge.
2. They really, truly think you're beautiful--and say so.
This one's important: No matter how fat or thin you grow, no matter how your belly and boobs change after childbirth, or how many wrinkles form at the corners of your eyes, these friends see you as you were 20 years ago, and as you are now. And they love you for it all.
This is especially important in the case of my particular friends, because I suffered the zit and braces-filled adolescent years with them. Years when my mouth and my nose were too big for my face. Years when I had bouffant bangs. The year of the perm.
3. They know how to mix your drink.
Heck, they know what you like to drink, how you like to drink it, when you like to drink it, and when you need a drink.
4. They share with you.
Their clothes, their shoes, their children, their vacation houses, their favorite new music, their secrets, their recipes. Life-long friends love you like family, and when they find or have something or someone else that they love, they want you to be part of it.
5. They're there for you, good times and bad.
This is a biggie. When you are, and have been, friends for life, you endure it all together: weddings, funerals, births, cancer, moves, job losses and gains, hearts merged and broken. Whether you're in the room or over the phone, or a thousand miles away from each other, you are there. And there's nothing more important than this.
6. They make you do things you don't want to do--but they do them with you.
Even if one of these (many) things involves a lot of wine, a sunset over the marsh, a band, a microphone, and maracas.
7. They put sunscreen on you.
This cannot be overstated. Lathering someone up with sunscreen is tedious, annoying and messy. You have to really love another person to commit to making sure they're not going to get fried in hot pink patches. I've estimated that these friends and I have been putting sunscreen on each other for about 20 years.
8. Their hearts break and swell with yours.
When you hurt or get hurt, life-long friends feel it too. This is different than being there in spirit or being there physically when something happens in your life.
The simple fact is, when you've been friends this long, you're part of each other's DNA. You feel for each other like family... really, in many ways, like something more than family, because you've chosen each other. And it doesn't matter if you don't talk on the phone every week, or if there are years when you see each other only once or twice. When they hurt, you hurt. And you're on your knees, in the dark, begging for their relief. When they rejoice, you rejoice. And you send your love out into the stratosphere like shouting into an emotional bull horn.
9. It doesn't matter how far apart you live, or how long it's been since you've last been together. When you get together, it's as if time has stood still, and you pick up right where you left off.
We have lived as close as half a mile and as far as 700+ miles apart. We've gone months and even years since being together. It just doesn't matter: our connection is rooted in the blood.
10. You are forever friends.
Really.
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