Girlfriend
I was overdue for my weekly coffee with MMCB. More or less weekly, that is. We’ve been every other week for a while recently. Lemme see… Where was she off to this time? Turkey for 10 days or so. Home for two-and-a-half days (and met me and our more occasional coffee buddy for coffee). Israel for 10 days or so. I am going to Houghton Lake Fish-fly City this weekend! I’ve stopped wondering why this globe-trotting jet-setter hangs around with the likes of a baggy old kayak woman. For whatever reason, she is one of those folks who didn’t give up on me, myself (social awkwardness), and I (reticence about making friends). We are friends.
By the way, I was talking to one of my MacMu cousins a couple weeks ago and I mentioned my typical method of making friends via “People Who Don’t Give Up On Me” and she responded with a vigorous, “Me too!”. Nice to know it’s in my DNA. Actually, I think that some of us (my cousin and I and others) don’t make friends easily because we don’t like to engage in a lot of the gossip or passive-aggressive behavior that sometimes goes with being friends. I want to have friends but I want a balance. You listen to me and I’ll listen to you. So often it can be one-sided. (Not that friends don’t gossip. Just that I only gossip with people that I trust.) My cousin doesn’t read my blahg but I love her so much.
Anyway, today I needed a GIRLFRIEND! Somebody I could *talk* to. Besides the GG, that is. Not that he isn’t a friend. He just isn’t a GIRLFRIEND! MMCB and I are Bosom Buddies, as Anne of Green Gables (who I am named after) would say. We can celebrate the good stuff without bragging, knowing oh so well that pride so often goes before a fall. We commiserate about the bad stuff. The ugly stuff? Oy! We LAUGH if at all possible. Both of us are pretty positive people when it comes down to brass tacks.
It wasn’t that I had anything in particular I wanted to *say* to MMCB today. Life is rolling along about like it always does. I just wanted to be with my coffee buddy. Any of my good friends would have sufficed, just that MMCB was here and available. She messaged me from Israel the other day to make sure our standing “date” was still on. Yes. It was. And we did meet today and it was so much fun!
Like I said, I have some other people who qualify as BFFs / Bosom Buddies. Friends (internet or otherwise), cousins, and in-laws. Love y’all.
June 19th, 2014 at 8:13 pm
I know exactly what you mean about girlfriends. I have lots of them and I can be myself and completely open about the positives and negatives of my life. They don’t judge, nor do I when they share their successes and worries. I have encouraged both my girls to make sure to maintain relationships with girlfriends too; one has heeded me and one has not. It worries me a lot.
June 19th, 2014 at 10:43 pm
I’m somewhat like you, in that I have a *few* really good friends. And by good, I mean exceptional (of which Margaret is one!) Bright, funny, insightful, encouraging, listen-worthy, talk-worthy, vent-worthy, you name it. Yes, sometimes some gossip. But that’s a low hanging fruit (albeit a juicy one at times). I love being able to relax and be me and for them to be her.