“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

Anais Nin

INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIP DAY was an internet thing this past week, and I’ve always had a bit of a problem with the concept of a ‘Best Friend’.  So many people pass through our lives at different times, in different circumstances, and each fulfills a unique and memorable role in the constantly changing ‘who’ we are at any given moment. I have been enriched by friendships, they are my accumulated wealth.

There are those jealously guarded childhood school attachments, shared secrets of crushes, and the dizzy excitement of preparing for dances.  Heartbreaks, disdain of fuddy-duddy parents, and overindulgence in chocolates which necessitate hours of shared face packs.  Despite heartfelt promises on the last day of school to write every day, new university friends are made, and the school pals would eventually relegated to a clutch of fading polaroids were it not for the advent of social media to enable us to watch one another’s children walk through the old school doors, hold those who meet widowhood or other tragedies, celebrate the milestones and understand the pride at reaching them.

In young adulthood comes the real world and the workplace; you’re flung in amongst people you’d perhaps not have in your home.  But there is the common field of reference and you find that you side with someone against the tyrant who is your boss, that you both laugh at the silliness of pompous language.  A memo containing ‘paradigm shift’ or ‘intrinsic strategic positioning’ can – for example – have you both rolling on the floor with laughter, to the bemused stares of others in the office.  When you leave the company, this friend will hand-make a card for you that you will frame and keep on your wall for ever, because it speaks volumes about the many years of private jokes between the two of you:

For some lucky souls, with a successful marriage comes years of accrued observations and events; the physical proximity leads to a relationship in which so many things can be left unsaid.  It’s an unparalleled concord, and probably the closest one I would consider for the term ‘Best Friend’.

Mature friendships with other cracked hearts, on the other hand, gained and grown in later life are truly above rubies. The wealth of accumulated knowledge and experience that can be enjoyed over a cup of coffee or a lazy meal is joyful beyond words.  Shared parenthood trials and tribulations, love of the arts; literature, music and humour, these are the rewards that come with the advance of age, along with heartache, trauma, and the perpetual disappointments that getting older bring.

I have a friend who is the only person who will understand an obscure joke about a flying goat, we don’t have time to grow our friendship because of life’s business, but I know she’s there, and I think she knows that she’s my Best Friend. I have two librarians on opposite ends of the country who are fiercely intellectually stimulating, and who give infallibly wise counsel. I would give my life for either librarian, and I am unspeakably exhausted after visiting with them, but will never have enough of their company. They are my Best Friends. There is a woman who helped me hurdle a deep ravine when I was six, and I have called on her most weeks for six decades to ask her to persuade me to hurdle again, to make me believe that I can. She is my Best Friend. I hang around with an outrageously creative homosexual man who ignores me when I say I want to be left alone to cry, and who forces me into good shoes instead, and makes me brush my hair and strut again. He is my Best Friend. There are a couple of lesbians down the road, bossy and capable, who are the strongest commanding officers in a time of crisis; they are my Best Friends. Cats are the best keepers of secrets and my cats over the years have heard my every prayer and confession; the have each been my Best Friend. I cannot write about my brother without aching for that inimitable kind of Best Friend he gave me during his too-short life. And then there’s my dog, but I have reached my 800 word goal for this exercise, so, IF YOU HAVE READ THIS FAR, THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND.

Enriching?  Hell yes, I’ve been – and continue to be – incredibly fortunate.

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