Mis Amigas

Switching gears entirely here from yesterday, I've been contemplating the role that friends play in my life.  It's been on my mind because with shifting circumstances and moves, my circle of friends and acquaintances has been changing significantly lately.  

What role does friendship play in your life?  Do you have a ton of friends, though maybe you only get together once in a while?  A circle you are constantly texting or facebooking, but rarely see in person?  One who has a few very deep friendships and then a wider range of people who are merely acquaintances?  Someone who has a difficult time making friends, and so has very few?  Someone who is so much of an introvert that you don't have friends and yet don't feel like lack of it?

I fall into the general category of someone who has a few very close friends and then a fairly wide range of acquaintances.  (Acquaintances being most of my facebook friends, church friends, and neighbors.  It's not that I don't like them; rather, they are not the people I've tied myself to on a stronger level.)

The friends I am talking about are the ones I have a very regular relationship with-- the ones I call first with any news, good or bad in my life, the ones I really talk to, the ones I make an effort to actually hang out with.  (Which for an introvert like myself, is not something I run around doing all the time.)

Maybe some people would call this kind of relationship "besties," but it's not that either.  These are the people who I've tied my heart to (and sometimes, I don't know if they even know it).  These are the people who I have an immense degree of loyalty to, the only ones outside my immediate family I'd do almost anything for.  Being who I am, the friends I have who fit into this category have never numbered more than three or four at any one time.  And four is extremely rare.  And this number often includes one or both of my sisters.  (That can change, depending on what is going on in my sisters' lives and mine, especially if we are living far apart.)

That means that every so often an old "bestie," if you will, leaves my life, and a new one works her way into my heart.  (Yes, this would be a "she."  With the exception of Terence, truly the only male to whom I've ever tied the deep friendship cord, all my best friends have been girls.  Well, except maybe Josh in elementary school-- but we were little kids, and it was a bit different.)  Losing a best friend for me, whether because one of us moves away, or our life circumstances change, or just because we change and drift apart, is kind of like going through a divorce for me.  It's extremely painful.  I feel like someone who was an integral part of my life has been ripped away.  It's least painful when we gradually drift apart, but even still, I'd rather have a tooth extracted than lose a best friend for whatever reason.

Sometimes I deal with that pain in a way that is not the most mature.  Mostly by distancing myself first when I know a change is coming.  Or possibly by burying my head in the sand and pretending nothing is changing even when it is.  Facebook has been good for that; I can still be "acquaintances" with a former close friend even as I let go a bit.  For the most part I don't think my strange version of trying to protect my heart has really hurt my friend (people have different levels of friendship, and I've known for sure a couple of times that my "I'll-die-for-you" loyalty is not reciprocated, not because she doesn't care about me, but because our friendship is different for her) but occasionally, I'm afraid I've hurt people I never would have wanted to.  Sorry doesn't even begin to cover it, but it's hard not to make a mess in our relationships sometimes.  

This kind of wholehearted friendship can apply to the opposite sex, though as a married woman I'd be wary of ever cultivating that kind of loyalty to someone who isn't my spouse (unless he was my brother).  Part of the reason that my marriage with Terence is so satisfying is because I have this kind of ultimate deep connection with him, the same kind of friendship I have with my best friends, but intertwined with romantic love as well.  I don't know how I got so lucky.  Quite frankly, in most of my romantic relationships before Terence there was very little element of friendship involved.  If you took out the physical attraction and the googly eyes, we had little to talk about and little to enjoy doing together.  But it's not that way with my husband, and the greatest blessing of my life is that I have this dear friend who I have tied to my heart as firmly as possible in every way, and I know I'll never have to cut that tie.

Friendship-- I'm truly grateful for it.  

Comments

Amy said…
I totally understand what you are saying, although I fall into the almost no friends category, Its hard to go through the "losing" friend stage since you almost always know its happening well before its done, done.

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