Friends

I don’t know how many times this year I have said, “I have the BEST friends EVER!”, but I do. Maybe being divorced has caused me both to rely on and appreciate my friends a lot more. Maybe by this time in my life I have weeded out most of the deadwood that was bringin’ me down. Maybe because of the bumps and bruises we all have, we are more tolerant of each other. Maybe this is Karma payback for that day in late 2000 when I decided that no matter how people treated me, I was going to try to be the kind of person I had always admired (although this is very much a work in progress).

At any rate, who else but the best friends in the world would:

• Offer to run over your ex and split the $10,000 fine
• Pick up your kids at a total stranger’s house on a moment’s notice and care for them indefinitely
• Have the honesty, compassion and wisdom to tell you, “I don’t know what to say.”
• Come over to keep you company while you cry AND bring wine
• Listen to you sing every song on the radio during a 14 hr road trip and not change the station
• Back you up on karaoke
• Ask a guy anything for a quarter
• Teach you how to curl your hair and fix your make up after the age of 15
• Not only not complain about how often you stay over, but buy you new bedding
• Know that dessert at your house will be Girl Scout cookies AGAIN, but come over for dinner anyway
• Teach you how to buy and wear a bra
• Listen to stories of people they have never met and keep all the names straight
• Offer up their homes for a rendezvous
• Cheer when you walk into the bar at Ladies’ Night
• Keep a secret
• Ask you at the beginning of your rant if they are supposed to just listen, agree with you, play devil’s advocate, offer advice, or help blast the jerk of the moment
• Offer your clueless self insight on alternative lifestyles
• Invent a new category of Extreme Amusement: The Mockolympics