Best of Friends

I am sitting at my desk and through the closed door I can hear my husband and his best friend Ed laughing as they watch Superman (the original movie) and The Marx brothers.  They seem to have their own language. You know, the language of friends that have been together since the first grade.  Dennis and Ed have literally been friends for fifty years. How rare is that?

I've had some close friends, some I thought I'd had forever.  But nothing as remarkable as what these two have.  They've moved across country together and through kids and marriage and jobs, they laugh together like they are six years old still.  Almost as if being together brings them back to an easier time, an innocent time.  When baseball and penny candy was the most important thing in your day.  And shouldn't that be the way of things?  Why can't we keep things that simple?

I am reflecting on my close, forget time and just laugh kind of friends now, as I sit here waiting for my toxic nail polish to dry, wondering if I am going to regret this color choice come morning's first light.

My one friend who makes me a fish stick wrap with american cheese and ketchup and the best coffee I've every had and its the best food I've ever tasted... and we can slip right into a conversation that feels like its never ended, and laugh about the craziness of how our lives have gone. She is the one who always comes to my rescue.

Then my other friend who makes the perfect cocktail, who always guesses right on my musical mood and who can talk me through or around just about anything, who always takes my side and who can just sit by me in companionable silence with the comfort only an old friend can bring. Like oxygen, I breath easier with her.

Or another friend I have who's calm existence is so overpowering that within minutes the tumult that is my mind slows down to a crawl and nothing seems so terrible any more.  Like a Valium to my soul, this friend's calmness steals over me and I am able to stop the whirring.

Or my sister who makes me laugh like nobodies business, who understands me right away, without any preface to my story. She is right on target before I even can get the words out, she knows.  She is my oracle.

Or my sister who is the poet in my heart kind of friend, who makes me believe in magic again and dreams and fairy dust.  She is eternally youthful to me, reminding me that anything is possible if you hold on to your hope. My role model friend

Where would we be without friends like that? The ones who take our sides, who know just what we need. Who run into the battle and never hesitate or  count the cost but would rather fight beside you and for you and defend you, even if you are your own worst enemy.

I can look back over my life and see exactly where each one of these friends scooped me up and saved me, from the most dramatic events to the seemingly mundane.  Life is worth the mess because of the people we get to love and know.  Here is to friendship, like Dennis and Ed, friendship that never stops, never changes and never quits. Here's to laughing until you snort. Here's to eating a whole roasted chicken together. Here's to laying on the kitchen floor in your friend's house and just waiting for things to make sense...and knowing that your friend will wait there beside you.  Here's to chickens someday having lips!