Best Friends

When you're a kid, best friends define themselves easily against a backdrop of other children that just don't seem to get you. Perhaps more perplexing is the way in which friends routinely betray us. "I hate you", "you're an idiot", or "I'm never talking to you again". What the hell? The tempests that provoke these devastating break-ups are usually and grievously unexpected. Sometimes, Humpty can be put back together. Other times, like when I was a senior in high school and one of my best friends cut the cord on our 6-year run without warning (or even a good reason), the scattered bits remain untended. These blows can be tough to weather.

As an adult, friendship is less easily pigeonholed. We tend to have many friends, defined in a variety of ways: coworkers and neighbors, old and new friends, bus stop friends, committee friends, church friends, play date friends, sports friends and mere acquaintances. While busy with work, family, running households, and raising children, the energy required to maintain friendships is often used up elsewhere.

Robin and me hanging out in my room.

I'd like to think that the friendships made during adulthood are built to last, but things can get complicated. There are times when I long for the type of friendship I had in high school with my best friend Robin. Nearly always on the same page, beginning in 7th grade we shared everything along the way, including, God bless her, her mom's DELICIOUS homemade chocolate chip cookies that she brought to lunch every day. From the time we were 12 until we graduated high school, the amount of time we spent talking on the phone and in person would be considered criminal in an adult world, with so many things to do and so little time in which to do them. Funny, it never seemed like time wasted.