Friends

I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately. How they start, change, end, re-grow, all of that. Watching Alpha decide who his friends are is kind of funny. His favourite right now is a boy from playschool because we went to his house and he has the same Plo Koon Lego ship as Alpha. And, well, if you can’t base a friendship on Plo koon, what can you base a friendship on?? Alpha is really bad with names though, so this friend is referred to in our house as “my Plo Koon friend”. Which makes me laugh. At least it’s clear what this friendship is based on. Other of Alpha and Bravo's friends are only based on my friends and their children. And mostly that has worked out. Thankfully the Plo Koon friend has a really nice mom AND a child the same age as Bravo, too. And Charlie doesn’t really care yet, as long as there is a toilet to try to get into or stairs to climb.

Last year both Alpha and Bravo’s favourite friend is a boy who lives across the alley. Because we see him a lot and because he’s older than Alpha by 9 months so he’s SUPER COOL because he can do cooler things AND he’s in kindergarten.

Alpha also adores people littler than Bravo. About 18 months and under Alpha is just drawn to. He loves making other babies laugh or grab his face. He loves stroking their heads when they’re really little (but who doesn’t love stroking tiny newborn heads??)

So according to Alpha a friend is one of three things. 1: somebody who is smaller than you therefore looks up to you and adores you. Somebody who is not threatening and can’t take your toys. 2: somebody cooler and bigger than you that you can look up to and 3: somebody who you share something with.

Which really, that about sums it up. My heart is pre-breaking for when the boys have friendships fall apart. We’ve all been there and it sucks. Especially when you were the one that got dumped. Some friendships seem so solid and then just… go away. Some seem flakey and based on nothing, but those end up being the closest ones.

The beginning of my bestie friendship was when I was 8. That was 24 years ago. We were “I hate you, I love you” for a few years and then we went skiing together. We were on a t-bar and I said “my bum’s falling off” and she said “literally?” and it was the funniest darn thing and then that was that. No more “I hate you” swings in our friendship. And over the years we’ve drifted and come back. And then last 6 years we’ve grown super close because of joint experiences. We were there for each other when the rest of the world wasn’t. And now she’s married to my favourite cousin (boo ya!! She’s family now!) and we send each other stupid messages all the time and it’s funny. Her two year old (well, 3 in a month) told her this week that she has a stick up her butt. Because she wouldn’t let her have cookies for supper. Funny. But that has nothing to do with this post. It’s nice knowing that no matter what happens in my life or how dumb I get that she will be there and will be able to make me laugh in about two and a half seconds.

I had another friend (the besties cousin actually) that I was super close to. But then my life got messy and she couldn’t deal so she bailed. By sending me a letter covered in stickers. And then she never talked to me again. It broke my heart and really really confused and upset me for a long long time. We were friends for 17 years and then *poof* not friends. And I didn’t get to talk about it with her or ask her questions or explain my messy life or anything. She just… I don’t know. Got bored. Or busy. Or something.

Other friends we just drifted apart and nobody was hurt or anything. And I still have fond memories of them and if I ever ran into them I’d be thrilled and then it would probably fade away again.

I had 2 super close friends in high school. One has drifted in and out of my life (but mostly out- moving 2 provinces away does that) and one dropped off the radar and despite several attempts on my part to get in contact with her it just hasn’t happened. The one friend recently got a hold of me, and I’m loving it. It’s this weird link to my past, and now we have all these new things in common that we have yet to explore, but I’m hoping to. Because I’ve missed her like crazy. She was one of those friends that you could stay up until 5 in the morning with laughing the whole time. About things like tuna and meatballers. Because those are funny. At least they are to 15 year old sleep-deprived girls. She’s actually the one and only person who has met me in real life that knows this blog exists. And it’s kind of strange. 15 years ago she knew everything there was to know about me. All my secrets, all my faults, all my craziness, all the crumby and good things that happened. And then she didn’t. And now she does again. And it’s kind of comforting in a weird little way.

I miss when we were kids and finding friends was less complicated. It’s hard now to find friends. Good friends. Friends that I can talk to about more than my kids. (Although I do talk a lot about them because they’re what I do all day and all night and I love them like cake.) But it’s hard to find that connection. It’s harder than “Hey, you like star wars and I like star wars, wanna play chase??” There seems to be so many rules around friendships now. Share. But not too much. Talk about your family, but not too much. Ask questions, but not too many, be invested, but the right amount of invested. Over invested and you’re going to look needy and you’ll get hurt. Under invested and you look like a jerk. Call or make contact, but not too much. Put yourself about ¾ out there. Maybe a bit less. Do mathematical equations to figure out how much to share, and when and where.

Why do adults have to make things confusing? Hey, old friend, I’m gonna put it out there. I have missed you. And I think about you lots. And every time I hear “it’s that time again…” you know what the answer is. When I see kids painting on the sidewalk I think of you. When I see a tall girl and a short girl walking together I think of you. So at risk of being over-invested and too in-need of a re-kindled friendship, I’m glad you found me and I’d like to keep this up. K? By the way, old friend, I still can't listen to Bite the Dust without hearing "I'm adopted!" Turns out Freddy Mercury WAS adopted, so maybe there's something to our theory. At least he's proud of his birth heritage.