Best Friends Forever

It is wonderful to be blessed with girlfriends. There is nothing like talking about great mascara, cheesy reality television, children, husbands, work, and everything in-between. Whether you are sharing a glass of wine, a cup of coffee or a walk around the neighborhood, time spent with your girlfriends is one of the most cherished times.

Audrey and her friend Molly met at five months old in daycare, and the two girls are already destined for a lifetime of chats and giggles. It is amazing to me at such a young age, friends are already chosen. I wasn’t five months old when I met my best friend Jessica, but I was five years old and she has been in my life for 31 years. Jessica is a sister to me, she is the person who I can talk to about anything without judgment or shame.  We have been by each other’s sides through life’s big and little moments. We have been one another’s Maid of Honor and we are our children’s godmothers. Jessica is the person I trust to keep my secrets and be my cheerleader. I honestly can’t imagine any part of my life without her, childhood through today.

I have been blessed to make other great friends along the way, friends made at school, college, work, and friends who merged into my life from men I dated and one I luckily married. I have friends that have come and gone, some that have just gone, some sticking through the long haul, and some that are brand new. I am grateful for the long-time friends who I can share in silly memories with and when we connect it’s like no time has passed. I am happy for my new friends who also have small children and can relate to my crazy life. I am always up for my friends who like a night out and help me to cut loose. I love my friends who we take “family vacations” with and our children call each other “uncle” and “aunt”. It is wonderful having this small group of compionship.

When you are young the name of the game is about being popular and having a massive amount of friends, but as you get older you realize it is about quality not quantity, and you start to surround yourself with a handful of close girlfriends instead of a boatload. You also realize that while you have friends to help you through life’s disappointments and celebrate the happy occasions, you really only have one best friend. When I was younger I used to take having a best friend for granted and didn’t realize what having one, having Jessica in my life, really meant. Now I do understand and I never take her for granted. Having a best friend means when you are at your absolute worst, she is there crying with you, holding your hand, and no words have to be spoken. It means when you are at your best she is happier than when she is at her own best and is your champion. Having a best friend is a gift we are given by God, a reflection of unconditional love and acceptance.

I pray Audrey is graced with the presence of strong friendships throughout her life, and I pray she will understand and cherish early on, the miracle of a BFF.

Picture Perfect

As mothers we spend so much time trying to capture the perfect moment on film. We want video of the first steps our baby takes, we want the perfect light so we can take a picture to upload to Facebook of our toddler blowing bubbles. We force our children to smile and sit still OR ELSE so we can get the family portrait for our annual Christmas card.

 I realized today as I spent twenty minutes trying to capture my daughter at just the right angle, calling her name, and laying down on the floor, I was too busy in the future to relish the present. We want to document everything our children do, but the fact is sometimes we are missing what is happening right now just so the picture or video can be perfect. Yes pictures are important to have and hold on to through the years, but pictures aren’t as good as the real thing.

I rocked my daughter to sleep tonight. Her room was dark and peaceful. A lullaby played faintly in the background. I was flooded with memories I have shared with my child in the eighteen months she has been here, and the memories that flashed in my mind were not ones in pictures. Nursing her at 2 a.m. and watching her sleep on her daddy’s chest were only captured in my heart not on film, and those moments are the tender and true ones. So the lesson I learned is maybe instead of trying to snapshot every moment with Audrey, I should just live the moment with her and cherish the memories that are mine and mine alone.

Drama Class

Teenage girls and young twenty-somethings seem to thrive on drama. High school is full of opportunities to be obsessed, stressed and a mess…pressure to be popular and fit in, having an unrequited crush, finding a prom date, gossiping about anyone and everyone, fighting for freedom from your parents, deciding where you are going to college, falling in love, having to say goodbye after graduation, the list goes on and on. And when you are 17 all of those things mean the world to you and you tend to be very dramatic about all of it. You can’t imagine EVER loving anyone as much as you do your boyfriend, and it’s HUMILIATING that your parents have an 11:30 curfew for you. As you get older and navigate through college and the workforce you realize you have gone on to love three more boys and saying goodbye to your high school friends wasn’t so bad after all. You do however find new drama and it seems to take in the form of relationships.

I remember fighting A LOT with my boyfriends in my twenties. With “Mark” I couldn’t even tell you what the fighting was about looking back now. I think it might have been because it was my first real relationship and I was learning about myself and my needs. I was changing all the time and it caused conflict in the relationship. The fighting had it’s moments but nothing compared to the drama filled break-up. Chasing him to a bar demanding to talk, heated arguments, family and friends taking sides, crying for hours listening to our songs, you name it, it happened. I recently saw Mark, both of us with our spouses; it had been 13 years since we had seen each other. Seeing him made me smile and a flood of good memories came back (not the drama) and I wanted to sit and talk for hours, reminiscing about when we were young and catching each other up on our lives today. Instead we only had a few minutes and exchanged a brief hello.  

There were a few other boyfriends in my twenties and they too had their share of drama but in these cases I think it was mostly due to the men I was dating. I went down a path a lot of women in their twenties go down and that’s getting in relationships where you try to be the “fixer” and the “pleaser”. Those types of relationships can be toxic and there is a high level of stress and drama. I was constantly trying to diffuse a situation, make someone happy, doing things that made me unhappy, and I lived this way for awhile. For some reason I was getting something out of all of it and thrived on the highs and lows.

In my thirties I finally came to realize drama is overrated, that the roller coaster ride is not where it is at. My focus is now on being at peace and living a beautiful life. I know who I am and am comfortable in my own skin. I found the love of a kind, stable and trustworthy man that needs no fixing. I wish I had found my way here earlier.

I also wish that I could give this focus and perspective to my daughter to avoid her riding the drama wave. I don’t want her to put importance on gossiping or being most popular. I don’t want her to allow herself to be walked all over in the name of “love”. I don’t want her thinking that the big fight followed by the big make-up session is what feels good, but in reality all of this is often just a part of life and growing up. So, big sigh, I just need to be prepared and ready to support her as she rides the wave…I have great faith she will be strong enough to be standing in calm seas when it’s all over.