We get by with a little help from our FRIENDS

Since this blog is all about the adventures of best friends, it's time we paid a little tribute to the all important topic: friendship. It's just a little thing but without an understanding, your life is going to be empty. I've thought a lot lately about how friendships change and evolve over the years.

You start out making friends very early in life, usually based on who your parents put in your path. In childhood we witness friendship in small acts like loaning a pencil, homework help, (Mandy, I still haven't forgiven you... ;-) sharing popsicles, building lemonade stands, and teaching each other how to do flips on the trampoline. Friendship meant helping you hide or come up with a good story when your parents used your (drumroll...) MIDDLE name! It was witnessed through the matching scooters that were revealed on Christmas morning or having someone to play with at recess everyday. Growing up I had no idea that these small, seemingly inconsequential occurrences and every day events were planting the seeds of what friendship means in LIFE.  

Marcie and Mandy, all innocent. 

During those teenage years friendship was a double-edged sword. We learned who our friends were and battled those "mean girl" demons. Prom dress shopping, crushes, notes written and passed at school, and joyriding in cars with no particular destination were all portraits of friendships in progress. Those friends were the ones who offered (behind giggles) to push the wheelchair at graduation because you broke your ankle the day before commencement, the ones who cheered the loudest when the college acceptance letters arrived and cried the longest on the day we actually had leave the nest. It was during this time of our lives that most of us learned that friends have to grow separately but can do so without actually growing apart.

Ah... then comes adulthood. LIFE. All of a sudden the stakes got bigger, the mistakes have scarier consequences, and friends became even more important than just a partner to share popcorn with at the movies. Now friendship looks like driving across the state (or the country) to help you move or just help you find your way. It means sharing the tears, the heartbreaks, the lost jobs, the missed opportunities, the closed doors, and the days when life just isn't terribly kind. On the flip side, it also means being there for marriages and childbirths, road trips without having to ask permission, and having someone to share all the awesome moments that happen to us every day in these grown-up lives of ours. You begin to realize that somewhere along this journey of scooters, lemonade stands, joyriding, and miles traveled we learned how to BE friends... how to just listen, give support, and offer help when warranted. Now "friends" are the ones who can explain escrow accounts, know why insurance is important, will meet you for dinner and sanity walks on a moment's notice, can be listed as emergency contacts, pray for you all the time, and will choose your MIDDLE name to inspire the names of their children.

However, it's very important to remember that even in these grown-up friendships we still like to share popsicles and are even better life cheerleaders. We still love turning flips on trampolines and nearly suffocating in deflating bouncy houses, and it's still more fun to have someone to swing with on the playground! 

M, M, & M starring in The Bouncy House Disaster

SWINGING!

Hanging out in treehouses