Defining the Word: Friend

Friendology

Study of friends and the power of friendships. The bond shared between two or more people. The understanding of friendship and how it is used in today's society. The worlds understanding of true friendship.

These girls have been pals, some besties, since their middle school years. They study together, they laugh together, they talk extremely loud together-- friends!  They have years before they have to think about separation.  And, when they do, I bet it'll be hard. 

This group of best pals, well, they're a whole different story. They are about to separate. Spread wings. While most of this close knit group is headed to Mizzou together, a few others are the brave souls, ready to branch off on their own for new adventures. Make new friends. Which sounds easy, but is it?  M is one of those brave souls.  M and her bestie (the other beauty clad in yellow) have been "sisters of the heart" for so long I can't see one without the other. They have lived and laughed together...even tested their parents' patience a time or two, together.  Growing up together as friends. 

While I sit outside enjoying the cool summer air (being eaten by mosquitoes) I can't help but think about how I too, like M, have to be that brave soul, leaving behind my school friends to spread my wings. I am totally excited about my new venture at work.  I feel fortunate to get the opportunity.  I spend my evenings building skill and knowledge...still old friends are hard to leave.  Old friends know you, you trust them, they get you, you aren't afraid to ask them questions. You know how to have after work fun together--Christmas karaoke and game night (what happens at game night stays at game night). How to make each other laugh-- at work and after work. The girl friend thing! We've all shed our separation tears, boxed up the old place, unboxed at the new place... I've cleaned the old place with new faces, to make the old feel fresh and new. The old place is my new place.  Still. Somehow, there is a comfort in the "old". Knowing how to finish each others sentences. How to complete a task without having to ask for assistance.  There's a forgotten unfamiliar to starting over.  I guess because the "old" had it: friendology!  

So what do girls do when they are about to embark on new adventures?  They spend as much time as they can with the old friends, so never to forget that feeling of comfortable. The trucks are rolling, walls are coming down and going up, but through all the boxes and all the construction we all know...friends never stop being friends.  

So girls, here's to us all. Here's to our new beginnings and our memories of the days. Here's to always being friends!

Friendtastic

This month has been friendtastic. First my BFF surprises me with a mid-week knock at my door. The BFF lives in Chicago. Then my good friend from San Francisco comes to town and we meet for coffee drinks, chat and chat while the rain poured down outside--we chatted the rain away. Today I breaked from moving everything we own to the box to the left to hang with my friend from high school, who was our class foreign exchange student from Mexico, and now lives in Rome, Italy; came back to St. Louis for a visit. I invited our other good friend over to the house and we ate lunch and caught up on our lives in person. Real conversation, not emails and instant message chats. Oh course a photo to mark the moment.

Then while we continued to move everything to the box to the left; the moment D has been waiting for came early. Her bestie who moved to Massachusetts last summer arrived in town 5 hours earlier than expected. The squeal of three friends greeting the bestie "home", becoming four, could have been heard for miles. I was flashed back to many years of the girls' booming voices when they converged in our basement . A boom that lit my heart for friends separated now by distance but not by heart. Oh course a photo to mark this moment too.

Like I said a friendtastic month!

Laundry 101

Why is it that we allow our own busy lives to stop us from making time to be with friends?

I had the best Saturday. And the longest breakfast of my life. I met up with my old camp friends and talked the morning into the afternoon--a six hour breakfast date, with tons more talking that could have been done. We talked about our parents, husbands, kids, G's adorable grand kids, menopause, college life, Ellen as the new Idol judge (thumbs down)...and laundry.

Thanks to G's son, who is for the first time tending to his own laundry, I learned a whole new way to fold T-shirts. G told the story of how her son didn't know how to fold clothes so he Googled, "how to fold clothes." She intrigued us all with a folding technique I just felt I must learn for myself. Something to excite me into doing laundry (cause those who know me well know I hate doing laundry).

And so I Googled.

This is the what I found:

Now I can't stop doing laundry, looking for T-shirts in the girls laundry piles. I am suddenly addicted to folding T-shirts in this sort of laundry origami fashion.

I also left excited for the day I turn fifty, which is a ways off but still. Sitting with my girl friends I can tell wisdom, strength and increased confidence comes with the age.

Now anyone who says a six hour breakfast is crazy should know in the end we leave not just with our hearts filled with friendship but we leave with knowledge that will last a life time...and that we should never go three years between get togethers.

Ladies see you around Christmas!

The Break is Over

A weekend simply told with a few photos.

There was a night in the city.

A morning in the park.

Snapping pics of architecture.

To hang in the office.

Then to the burbs to hang with good friends.

Because, sometimes, luck has it, that your friend's kids become some your kid's best friends.

Watching the kids play ball games in the yard in the beautiful spring Frankfort air.

Men grill. Meat.

(pictures snapped by CoCo)

Now it's back to reality. School. Work.