My Best Friend

I’ve never really fit in well with women and throughout my life I’ve only had two “girlfriends”. I never felt like I was missing out or saw myself as some sort of gender freak. However, as a middle aged woman with grown children, my lack of female companions becomes more noticeable.

I don’t meet up with my buddies for lunch or to go shopping. I don’t chat on the phone. I am not a member of any neighborhood organization charged with arranging games or block parties. Not only do I have no gossip about my neighbors, I don’t even know their names. Mind you, I don’t feel sorry for myself. I like it like this. In fact, I may have subconsciously designed it like this.

Socially there are no two people I’d rather hang out with than my own two daughters. Movies, shopping, vacationing, playing cards, eating or just chilling – absolutely no one comes close to my preference for my daughters. Not even their dad, whom by the way I specifically avoid involving in the above mentioned activities.

But I do have a best friend. Just not the conventional model. I have the very best friend anyone could ever wish for. My best friend loves me unconditionally, has never passed judgment on any of my actions {including those in the 70’s}, never makes me self conscious about my weight, my clothes, my hair or even my family. Seriously, how many people can say this about their best friend?

As a small child building forts with blankets over furniture, coloring with chalk rock, floating the lake in tire inner tubes, telling spooky stories, riding bikes/horses or checking out the State Fair unsupervised; I never knew how this relationship would develop. How could I have ever imagined.

I never knew in my 50’s I would still be just excited for a Monday to roll around as I once was for a weekend.

I look forward to Mondays sometimes because I am need of a good belly laugh, sometimes because I can’t wait to vent about whatever injustice I may have endured over the weekend, other times just to repeat “children related” stories. Whatever the reason, I’ve never been disappointed, never been turned away and always found a loving listener.

So maybe my best friend never calls me for a shopping outing or invites me over to tan – but he loves me, always and forever and I am more blessed than most.