Good Sorts of Friends

When I was a kid, I had a great little group of best friends.
(Maybe we were considered a clique by others.  But we weren't!  We were just friends.)


They were the best sort of childhood friends.
We were a chatty crew.  We could talk & talk & talk about something or nothing.
We were creative & imaginative.
The only toys we usually played with were our dolls.
We even had a doll club, in which we discussed the life of our dolls (?).
We would put on figure skating competitions on our bedroom floor, dancing in our socks.
We wrote letters to each other.
Sometimes as fictional people.  We were writing dramatic novels in letter form.
The favorite names of the group were Laura (Ingalls) & Anne (Shirley).
The girl quickest to announce her name was likely to choose Laura Anne.
We would bike & bake & laugh & make friendship bracelets.
And we fought.  (Oh girlie, did we fight.)

But the thing is, they are still my friends.
23 years (give or take) later.
And that is a very good sort of friend.

We had a little last minute friend reunion last week.

Krista (little sis), Stef, Me, Cola, Julie

Stef & Cola both happened to be on vacation in Cali.
And they both happened to be coming to the coast on the same day.
So, Julie drove to the coast, too.
And Krista & I lucked out by already living here!

It is a very good sort of friend,
when you have the mutual understanding
that life goes on
& free time is now more limited
than it was 15 years ago.
There are no hurt feelings about it.

But, when I do get to see one of these old friends,
it is just like it has always been.
They really know me.
And conversation is still great.
(Even though, it seems in my adulthood I have lost some of my chit chat skills.
I don't feel like a very good conversationalist much of the time.
You know, awkward silence?  Yep, me too.)

Our kids all got to play together.
That was a lot of little ones!
(& an amazing low amount of fights.)

Friends who may be far, but still are close.

That is lovely.

I am grateful