When You're the Best of Friends

Friends are a funny thing.

Some friends are in your life for a fleeting second.  Others remain for a lifetime.

We start meeting them when we are children.  How many of those children are still your friends now?  How often to we make friends now with the simple abandon we had as children?  Not often, I would wager.

Depending on your life growing up, friendships may have come easy or may have been sporadic.  I've been fortunate to be in a family  that stayed in one place for my formative years.  I've know plenty of others - cousins, childhood friends, a best friend from grade school - that had to move around because of being a part of a military family or a parent got transferred for a job.

I can only imagine how things panned out for them.  How hard it was to leave old friends behind to make new friends in a new home.  My cousins were military and moved overseas.  I'm sure there were other American and/or English speaking kids there, but that's got to be hard.

My only taste of anything closely resembling that was switching to a different high school outside of my community.  I wasn't happy to do it.  I didn't want to leave my friends.  But I grew up in a small community.  A lot of the kids I would hang out with went to my church.  I still got to see my best friend once a week, as he would join us every Sunday.  Even then, though.  Schedules get more complicated, lives get busier, people drift apart...

I guess that's where my stance on friendly relationships started to grow.  Part of this may be due to being an introvert; the social aspect certainly fits.  I'm not necessarily proud of it, but my mind doesn't wrap any other way around it.

I'm slow to make friends unless we are together in a like situation for a while.  If you come over to visit and I don't know you, chances are I am not going to be very social.  I'll be watching and listening and speaking when spoken to, but until I find some common ground my lips are sealed.  Now, in a situation like a new school I'm in classes with people and band together.  That's the easiest way for me to make a friend.  Especially in the instance of my high school best friend - we both played trombone and he was going down the line asking if everyone was Catholic (it was a Catholic high school).  I told him I was Lutheran and we were best friends ever since.  As far as we could tell, we were the only two Protestants in the school, though we did find out otherwise later on.

The hard part of a friendship for me is when I move away.  It's difficult for me to keep friends when I don't see them often - out of sight, out of mind.  I've tried.  I had a fantastic circle of friends in high school.  I would occasionally see some of them after we graduated.  When we did hang out together, even years after, we would fall right back into the groove of things.  Normally, though, I just move on.  It seems callous, even to my ears.  To my mind, it's just the natural order of things.

I've only really discovered the joys of social media recently.  It's now easy to find people with similar interests.  We may not be true friends in the sense of the word, but we are friends of sorts.  Even if we are just playing the same game.

You get to know these people, looking at their postings and pictures.  Maybe we don't get to know the true person behind the profile, but we do find out who shares our interests.

And these random strangers aren't the only ones I get to keep in touch with.  My friends that I grew up with and went to school with and met on my path are all here within typing reach.  It's fantastic to see what all of my people are up to twenty years later!

I love seeing what their families are like.  I can send encouragement and good wishes on an accomplishment or anniversary.  Just today, I found out a friend from Middle School now lives within blocks of my Grandmother's old house!  It just fills me with joy.

I know it's not the same thing as having a full conversation on the phone or by text, but I do enjoy keeping in touch with my old friends.

Moreover, I've been able to make a whole new set of friends.  There are those I play games with and there are those who get a "good morning" like on a comment or picture.  Finally there are those that actually send messages and look out for each other.  These are the ones I like best.

Sometimes I wonder why I make a posting or comment on a picture.  Will people appreciate it like I do?  Most times, I'll never know.  A like or comment can speak a million words.  Those that I do see responding can be counted in my closest online friends and I hope that my likes and comments are taken as evidence of that.  I may not say much in the cybersphere, but those words I utter are true.

My husband and I have a philosophy that we've grown to share.  It works for us because we are both adopted.  Our families chose us in adoption because they wanted us.  We are making our family the same way.  We choose our family - those we want to be around.  Our family consists of those closest friends that we care about the most.

Of all of my friends out there in cyberspace, know that you are cared for because you touch my life in even the smallest of ways.  Be you family or Family or even a casual friend, thank you.

When you're the best of friends
Having so much fun together
You're not even aware, you're such a funny pair
You're the best of friends

Life's a happy game
You could clown around forever
Neither one of you sees, your natural boundaries
Life's one happy game

If only the world wouldn't get in the way
If only people would just let you play
They say you're both being fools
You're breaking all the rules
They can't understand, the magic of your wonderland
Hu-hu-hu

When you're the best of friends
Sharing all that you discover
When that moment has past, will that friendship last?
Who can say? There's a way!
Oh I hope... I hope it never ends
'Cause you're the best of friends

~ When You're the Best of Friends

    Disney's The Fox and the Hound