Something about Friends that Could Have Been Written By a Third-Grader (except for the drunk part)

So tonight I’m pretty happy. I have recently realized that my image (Libra rising sign, for those of you who know what means) – the image I try to project, also – is one of a happy girl. I meet people pretty quickly, and have no problem letting them right on in a little bit to my life. I actually probably appear like an open book. There is a combination of a façade and truth in that first impression, in that I will give, and am happy to give, freely of myself to new people – because except for a select few, I find a lot of happiness in knowing new people and in the beauty they bring with them into my life. That’s the truth part. The facade part is that I'm not actually always happy, and sometimes feel very, very far from it, as in insanely sad. Now, with the people who remain in my life, who become actual friends, friends that go beyond the common interest or job or activity that has physically brought us together – the process happens much more slowly. There’s usually a click point, or something, and it’s usually when I’m feeling not so great and when I start talking about why (open book), and I sense that the reasons why I’m feeling like that are understood – deeply - and I'm not just meaning the problem itself, but the overarching mood, and the implications of that mood. And conversations, other, more real conversations, spawn from that, and that, to me, is a click point. (Could happen vice versa too, by the way.) Another click point is under the influence of alcohol, and I give a LOT of credit to the people with whom that “click point” has been reached while drunk and who follow up on the realization that yeah, this person could be a real friend. Or, finally, a click point could be when I just say “fuck it” and call someone for an out of work or out of school reason. And I feel VERY lucky in this area, in that I have maintained friendships with people spanning from my best friend in the world, AB, and I think we were two or three years old when we became “best friends,” to people I’m still meeting now, 25 years later.

P.S. That was a horribly written paragraph that I could have probably used bullet points to explain (or copied a spot from a child development text book entitled “how children make friends,” but it is true.) My 14 year old cousin described her way of making friends to me in a very similar way recently, so maybe it’s like that for everyone. But that’s where this entry started to go, when I was actually going to just write a list about the little things that make me happy (a tidy kitchen, pretty smelling candles, finished school projects, old school CDs, etc.) but instead it transformed into something I could have written in third grade. Not particularly profound, but hey, sometimes what goes through my mind isn't. In any case, thank you, thank you to my friends – and AB I’m particularly shouting you out here – old and new.