Maybe you know that one of my besties, Joss Dey, and I started a podcast—www.crappyfriends.net. Both of us are fascinated with female friendships, because if you’re a woman, you have female friends, and my God, they mean so much to us, don’t they? Joss and I wanted to talk about the dark underbelly of friendships gone wrong, because they cause us so much woe. We don’t see it coming. We expect our gal-pals to change. We want good things for them, and we didn’t know that feeling wasn’t mutual.
Obviously, we’ve been thinking about friendships-gone-wrong a lot. But I wanted to stop for a minute and acknowledge the friendships-gone-right, too, because one of the things the podcast has done is make me grateful for the wonderful women I have in my life. So without further ado…
Hilary, my sister, also my best friend.
Flannery, my daughter, also my best friend.
Beth, my oldest friend (suffice it to say we’re coming up on our 50th anniversary, okay?).
Beth and I live in different states, but if I needed her or she needed me, we’d be there, no questions asked. Beth is beautiful and funny and irreverent. She knew me when I was an awkward, fanciful kid who rode imaginary horses. What a gift, to have a friend who shared your childhood!
Robyn. There’s that friend who is so frickin’ happy for you when things go right, who’d fight for your honor, who wants nothing but great things for you, who shares her wisdom and gifts you with her secrets, who would give you a kidney.
Shaunee. The sister of my heart. When I’m dying in a hospital bed, she’ll be there, no doubt.
Catherine, the friend who saw me through the hardest times of my life. What can I say about the friend who dropped everything when my father died? Who made me laugh when I was legitimately dying? One of the crown jewel of friends since we were 18 years old.
Christine. Lo these many years, watching our kids grow up together, watching them become adults. I call her my Jane Austen friend—we bonded over our mutual love of books and sewing, of domestic arts and children. Never a cross word between us, always sure in the other’s love.
Stacia. She gets me. I get her. I’d ride into battle for her, and she for me.
Maureen. That friend who makes you funnier, smarter, better, who asks nothing of you but to be yourself.
Deeanne. Who’d have thought that people from such opposite backgrounds would laugh till our teeth chattered? Who knew that meeting on a bus would blossom into a friendship so rich and layered?
You know what? Writing this blog would take forever if I named every single person I consider my closest female friends. Karen, Jennifer, Huntley, Kathy…and all the newer friends, too! Xio, Nana, Sarah, Alyssa, Sonali, Susan, Julie, Maggie, Lorelei…the list grows and grows.
How lucky I am. How very, very blessed. Truly, there’s no other word for it.
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