Tell Us About: Friends!

Last year, I joined the wonderful women from Is This Mutton, MK’s Adventures in Style, Deb’s World, Grownup Glamour, and Frugal Fashion Shopper for a global writing challenge. Later, Suzy from The Grey Brunette, Sue from Living Well after 50, and I joined in on the fun permanently! Penny decided upon this month’s prompt, and I think it’s going to generate some really fascinating reads! I hope you’ll visit all of these blogs because you are going to be amazed at, not only the diversity of the ideas, but the stories of each person. There’s also a link party on Is This Mutton.

Friends and friendship…

Friendship is one of those strange, amorphous things.  There isn’t a recipe for friends.  There isn’t a check list.  There isn’t a website…well, maybe there is one of those!  Friends, by definition, are people with whom we have a mutual affection.   That’s a rather sterile definition for something so meaningful, right?  According to that definition, I have had many, many friends over the years.  I prefer to think of friends as being people who know your heart, your mind, and your feelings (even about politics) and love you anyway! 

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” — Anais Nin

When I was teaching, I had several “friends” who seemed to meet my definition.  We shared lots of things, did things together, and then, somehow or other, we became not only former friends, but almost enemies (as far as you can do that in a school setting).  One or two of them could be considered frenemies.  A frenemy is someone with whom you are friendly even though you may actively dislike them.

“Everyone has a friend during each stage of life. But only lucky ones have the same friend in all stages of life.” — Unknown

I’ve heard it said we have seasonal friends.  You know that kind, right?  At a particular season of your life, you are friends.  For example, when I was a brand new mom, I had a very dear friend.  She and her husband were godparents to our oldest; we were godparents to her youngest son.  Eventually, things changed between us.  She and her husband divorced, and I became persona non grata to her.  It hurt, but I chalked it up to lots of different things.

As my kids grew, I continued to make and lose friends.  These were just more of those seasonal friendships.  These women came and went in my life, and I was fine with it.  I had reached a point in my life where I was just so busy, friendship was one of those things put on the back burner.   I was going to school, raising kids, beginning my teaching career, and pretty much treading water for several years.  I didn’t think I needed a friend since I had Nigel. 

“Best Friend:  the one that you can be mad at only for a short period of time because you have important stuff to tell them.”  – Unknown

Eventually, my kids grew older, and life steadied.  I had made and lost these friends at school.  And, then I changed jobs which changed my friendships.  I had been a special education teacher in our building.  I was a department of one!  Actually, there was also a speech language pathologist (who was only in the building a couple of days a week) and a paraprofessional.  Because I didn’t have a grade level, I didn’t have those automatic relationships you usually form.  Then, I started teaching fourth grade (which is the absolute best grade ever). 

“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” — Bernard Meltzer

And there, I met K and D.  These two women are two of the absolute best human beings I have ever been privileged to have known. They are kind, gracious, and beautiful…inside and out. They are mothers, teachers, and sisters. They are quite simply amazing. Both of my golden friends are still teaching. I am the only one old enough to be retired! We became the trio of teachers at the end of the hall…the ones who always managed to be on the edge of being in some kind of trouble or another…the ones who laughed for hours on end…the ones who cried with each other at bad news.

“You don’t have to be crazy to be my friend. I’ll train you.” — Unknown

K and I met when she was fresh out of college. I hadn’t been teaching long. I was a non-traditional student in that I didn’t go to college until I was in my late 20s. So, I even though I’d only been teaching a couple of years longer than K, I was over ten years older than her. K and I were both special education teachers at that time.  It wasn’t until we both ended up in fourth grade that we became friends.  At that time, we taught with one of the two male teachers in the building.  We talked about anything and everything in front of him.  We told him he was an “honorary woman!”  The three of us were so good together.  The best thing was there was none of the jealousy that affected other teams in our building.  We just wanted to do the best we could for our students and, possibly, have fun doing it! 

And, have fun we did!  We had a theme for our classrooms which involved camping.  At the end of the year, we would take our students to camp.  This involved an overnight stay.  Luckily, the teachers had their own rooms.  Parents as well as students looked forward to this study trip.  We would take almost as many parents as we did students!  We would stay up until way after midnight playing cards and joking around with our parents.  K and I would stay up even later, decompressing from the day, laughing and reminiscing about the years we’d spent together.  It was the perfect way to end a school year even though we usually had about six weeks of school left. 

“We’ll be the old ladies causing trouble in the nursing home.” — Unknown

Eventually, our “honorary woman” moved to a different grade level.  K and I were apprehensive about who would join us.  D joined us when she and her husband relocated to our part of Indiana.  Her specialty was lower elementary, but she’d also taught fourth grade.  We were cautiously optimistic.  We knew she was one of “us” the day she walked into a door!  Oh, my goodness!  That began too few years of laughing and teaching.  D was always the one with the most common sense, I think! K and I would make some weird suggestions for teaching, and D would talk us down!  I wrote about them in a post already.  You can find that here. 

Of course, teaching is never all fun and games. There is always something new on the horizon when it comes to education…hahaha…no, there isn’t! That “something new” is usually just something that was in vogue years and years ago, has been pulled out of the moth balls, given a fresh new coat of paint and new name, and et voilà, a new strategy, program, or system. Together, the three of us would be able to put together enough of the pieces to get it to make sense. We each had our own gifts and shared them with each other. There was none of that “I came up with this so I’m going to keep it just for me” nonsense. We truly were a team…loving and laughing a lot!

“It’s hard to find a friend who’s cute, loving, generous, caring, and smart. My advice to y’all is, don’t lose me.” — Unknown

The three of us get together occasionally and not near as often as we’d like.  But, they are both still teaching and have busier-than-me lives.  When we do manage a get together, it’s like no time has passed at all!  Within seconds, we are talking a mile a minute.  We reminisce about our few years together.  We catch up on each others’ lives, and we laugh!  You wouldn’t think any time or distance had ever separated us.  These two will be my best friends for the rest of my life, and I hope they know how much I treasure and love both of them.

Wrap it up, Marsha!

I love these Global Writing Challenges. As you can probably tell, I enjoy writing and spinning a good yarn. Well, that makes it sound like I made this story up. I didn’t, but I realize friendships like these are gold. I know there are many of you with friends like mine. We are truly the lucky ones, aren’t we? So, can we talk? What is your definition of a friend? Have you had friends for certain seasons of your life? Do you have friendships that have stood the tests of time? Please leave me a comment or two, and we can talk. I promise to respond as soon as possible.

Thank you!

I want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for reading, commenting, subscribing or emailing! It truly means so much to me! If you’d like to follow me on Instagram, you can find me here.

Where you can find me:

Linking up with Nancy’s Fashion Style,  Fine-Whatever, Is This Mutton, Shelbee on the Edge, Chez Mireile, The Grey Brunette, and Away from the Blue as well as Deb’s World and A Fresh Cup of Coffee. I also link up with This Blonde’s Shopping Bag, Doused in Pink, I do deClaire, Mummabstylish, and Style Splash. Please check out these wonderful ladies and their blogs! I also am a co-host for Ageless Style on the third Thursday of the month and Songful Style on the last Monday of the month. I co-host Traffic Jam Weekend every Thursday with Melynda, Lisa, and Sue. I also host Final Fridays on the last Friday of the month as well as 10 on the 10th on the 10th of the month! I do hope you’ll check out all of these blogs and link parties!

What others are saying…

From Sue from Women Living Well After 50, “Friendship has no age barrier.  Why ‘Age-Gap Friendships’ are a vital part of Ageing Well.”

Penny, The Frugal Fashion Shopper “looks back at friends she had during her childhood and reflects on how friendships change over the years. She notes how important her current friends are and how we all communicate now as opposed to the past.”

“It’s not always easy making friends in later life.” Gail from Is This Mutton has some ideas on how to find your next BFF.

“For this month’s lovely prompt of Friends and Friendship, Debbie of Deb’s World is sharing a story from a few years ago, all about friendship and making lifelong friends in the world of blogging.”

From Jill at Grown Up Glamour: “I have explored the changing nature of friendships throughout our lives and the importance of friends as we age.”

Suzy tells us, “Suzy shares stories of friendships over her 48 years, from childhood buddies like Emma to global connections, each one leaving a unique mark on her life.”

“Mary Katherine reflects on long-friendship gold, friendships lost, and new friendships at midlife.”

And, now, it’s your turn!

If you’d like to link up your Friends/Friendship posts, please pop over to Gail’s blog, Is This Mutton, for the link up!

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