I'll Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

Women seem to say this all the time, but it bears repeating. It is so important for us to have girlfriends. Well, ok. Maybe women don't say this all the time, but we should. Magazines always seem to have articles on the important of having women friends and making time to nurture and cultivate those friendships.

Susan and I on a visit to Louisville, where she and her family live, back in 2010.

To have other women we can laugh with and cry with. Eat with (ummm...I may have a food obsession issue...don't judge me!), talk to and share with and learn from and just have the support that we all need while going through this crazy thing called life. I've really come to realize how much those friendships mean to me in the past few months while I've been dealing with this crazy and inconvenient little health issue of mine (for the love of God, I just wanted to get laid!). I've had more friends than I can count or acknowledge who have been willing to listen to me and be supportive. It also may help that I am paying someone to listen to me every other week, too, before I drive those friends absolutely insane talking about things all the time. Never underestimate the importance of professional help when you can't seem to help yourself. (And before your friends and family no longer want to deal with listening to you.)

With my friends Heather and DD. We could have talked for 3 more hours easily.

This is all in the forefront of my mind today because I was lucky enough to spend several hours with two lovely friends yesterday. I hadn't seen them in several years, but through the "wonders" of social media, it often feels like you've only seen someone a few days ago. We picked up where we'd left off and had the best time together. We could have kept talking for several more hours if we all hadn't needed to get home. And no, I didn't monopolize the conversation talking about all my issues and what's going on in my life. My life really isn't interesting enough to talk about it all day long, no matter how much I wish that it was!

Laughing after dinner with Ilana and Linda in Arizona.

I also had a great mini vacation out west last month to hang out with one of my oldest friends, Linda, where we stayed up late talking and drinking and eating and then playing dress up at 4am. Things are rarely boring with the people who know you so well. Although I refuse to take responsibility for trying on a dress 2 sizes smaller than I am since it really was 4am and we'd killed 2 bottles of wine at that point.


I'm going to try to take a little step back in the future and really try to appreciate the friendships that I am blessed to have. As an adult, it can be so hard to meet new people and forge new friendships since we are all busy with our lives and families and jobs. It can be even more difficult to keep nurturing the friendships you already have. But it's important to try. To remember why we love the people that we love and the amazing value they bring into our lives. It's time for me to be better about that. Starting now.

Two of my best friends from college, Kelli and Cindy, catching up a couple of years ago at Thanksgiving.