There are four women in my life I can't live without. They've known me since third grade and one even has the distinction of having met me in nursery school at the tender age of three. They are absolutely my best friends but they mean more than even that in my life...they hold pieces of living history within them that no one else can share. If they dropped off the planet tomorrow, I'd be more than devastated. I'd be without huge chunks of my past and would have a difficult time remembering crucial aspects of myself. Did I really stand on a street corner in high school with shaving cream on my face and dressed in pajamas for their approval? What about the dork I ended up going to the junior high prom with because I was too shy to ask the jock whom I really liked? Needless to say, if I hadn't been standing right next to one of these women (when we were in 6th grade) as Brian Chidsey ran into her with a bike and broke her leg, no one would have believed why she'd later consent to go out with him (he was exceptionally cute.) Not only do these women have the answers, they have blackmailing, nitty-gritty, down to the last God-awful details of all these events and more.
Good friends carry your past experiences with them in their memory banks like a virtual almanac which is why a "friends' network" is paramount in a single person's life. I'm sure couples have networks, too, but it's different. Two people can lean on one another and create their own mutual history which eventually becomes their priority and ultimately their family. To them, friends are nice but secondary and definitely not necessary for their survival. The opposite is true for those still riding the dating train. For instance, I spend four days each year in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida at a beach cottage owned by my friend, Debra. The other three women I mentioned fly in from all over the country (just like myself) for that long weekend and four days later, we are tired and sunburned but renewed with a sense of ourselves that only time together can bring about. I can go months without hearing one of their voices but when one calls, it's as if we spoke five minutes ago. Our friendship is timeless.
Newer friends are a key part of the network, as well. Only my pal, Jan, knows how truly enraged I can become at a weed wacker because she, herself, has also mowed her own yard. I've come to the conclusion that gas powered tools are my nemesis but she is the friend I can call after I've thrown the Ryobi as far as humanly possible down the street and then screamed obscenities after it. Jan understands that sometimes I'm not sure I need a boyfriend as much as I need another human being who can get my back when the inanimate objects in my garage conspire against me. Leslie, my co-worker, remembers the crazy experiences we've had together for the past nine years at work with kids, teachers and parents. All we have to do some days is look at each other and utter a phrase and we're convulsing with laughter. Debbi, whom I met when I first moved here, signs her birthday cards to me with "your true soul mate" because in truth, I'd marry her if she was a man. My friends have filled long, lonely weekends, answered my calls at 2 in the morning, picked me up from the airport, sat with me in the hospital and generally filled in the blanks of life that I, as a single person, have encountered on my own.
Keeping a friends' network, though, takes time, patience and the ability to put my own needs aside occasionally when one of them needs me just as much as I've needed them. It also takes strength of character and the ability to tell a man whom I might be interested in that, no, I already have plans with my friends and I'll have to see him some other time. Selling out a girlfriend for a man is an ugly fact of life. It happens all too often and isn't easily forgiven (if ever) by some women. It took me years to realize that even though men are great and I certainly wouldn't want to imagine life without them, it's the females in my life who connect with me on a cellular/gender level. Having these friendships in my life just may be the emotional equivalent of a warm Bikram room at 108 degrees. They are my "cushion," my shared memories, my family of choice.
