Code Red, Friendship Therapy!

Where would I be without my friends?  I’ll tell you where I’d be… I’d be lying in a fetal position in my linen closet, sucking my thumb, humming mindlessly with chocolate chip cookie dough running down my chin.  I was almost there a few days ago.  I had already achieved the humming and cookie dough level when I contacted my friends praying they had nothing to do so we could skip town for a few hours.  Coincidentally, they had hit their own levels of insanity and jumped at the chance to drop everything and run.

When the waters get a little (or a lot) rough, I can act all tough and invincible and fight my way through each hurricane or tsunami but the minute I lock eyes with my best friends, the defenses crumble and I feel a relief and can feel the storms calm.  I love that feeling.  These are the wonderful women I am closest to and they see through all the crap and just by my voice they can tell I’m not doing so hot.

They are my people and they know my past, they know my weaknesses and quirks, they know that I cannot repeat jokes correctly and they also know how to make me laugh when I feel the sky has caved in.  I have a friend who has literally blown in my face, like you do a baby who has quit breathing, to get ME to breathe while having a terrible panic attack.  She is the one who would physically fight someone in my honor.  She’s a tiny little thing but she can take you! She has the biggest heart I have ever seen and she’d be happy to give you her last dollar if she knew you needed it.  She is like a sister to me and she’s precious.

Shout out to my book club friends.  There are so many personalities in this group that orchestrate a perfect symphony of humor, intelligence, maternal  fierceness, nurturing spirits and easy friendships.   I have walked in to the homes of these women feeling like I have waited much longer than a month to see them and couldn’t be happier to embrace them, eat their stuffed peppers, dips and desserts and share glasses of our favorite spirits.

I have friends that have stuck with me for soooo many years and I don’t see them often but when I do, we pick up right where we left off as if we just saw each other yesterday.

My best friend….She can’t shake me for nothing, poor lil thing.  We have been friends for 13 years.  We have been through, deaths, divorces, breakups, sickness, health, arguments, babies and all that goes along with them, personal tragedies, heartbreaks, disappointments and we may or may not have ended up in different states 3 times because of our infamous road trips that lead to geographical confusion.  She’s pissed me off, I’ve pissed her off, she has held me as I cried on many occasions and has dropped everything to stand by my side billions of times.  We drive around, blasting music, act a fool, knowing we will not be judged by the other.  We laugh so hard we pee a little and then laugh some more. You get the point.

Girlfriends are irreplaceable and the love and support we receive from them can keep our boat afloat during the high tides.  I, personally, would not have survived without these relationships.  I truly hope you have at least a couple of women in your life that have your back and give you that lift in spirit when you need it.  I hope you ARE that friend to someone.  There is nothing like it!