friends, food, and family...

After working several twelve-hour days this week, it was nice to sit and unwind with friends this labor day weekend.  friends are amazing.  I think that without friends, life would be less work living, work would be less worth doing.  We have family, significant others, children, etc.. And i will never discount the importance of those things.  But sometimes an outsider of the house is an insider of everythng else. 

We can sit and talk of music, complain about current girlfriends or exlovers, compliment our husbands, shoot the breeze about recipes and house keeping short cuts, share banter on the weather and whether or not it is warm enough to swim, IM about our terrible day at work, sing the praises of our children, cry over a divorce, breakup, worry, or death, or tell about the latest episode of True Blood.  Whateve the discourse does not matter... the meat of this magic is in the doing not the saying.     The doing is the being there--not always in physical matter, but in the emotional.  This is why friendship is important. 

Platonic, non-romatic frineds are just as important to a body as are food, air, water, and shelter.  There are some things that only a friend would understant-- like doing a "drive-by" to see if he is really home--to tell you that you are not intimidating, just tall for a girl--to chase you down two towns away because you didn't answer your cell phone and may be dead-- to baby sit your child when you need to get away-- to eat ice cream with when your dad tells you to drop a few pounds-- to talk you into getting two lab puppies instead of just one because they might get lonely if you separate them-- to tell you when you look silly after shaving your head-- to give you a heads up if there are "bats in the cave" or pepper in the teeth-- to call you after that first date with a someone new just to see-- to laugh with until the tears are rolling and breathing is labored.  These are small ways of showing love.  Becuse not all love is romantic and not all friendships serve the same purpose.  If that were the case, we could survive with only one friend, but instead, we surround ourselves with a web of people who make us laugh, hold us when we cry, tell us we need to go to the doctor then go with us to the appointment, and eat with us when we are lonely. 

So, cheers to my friends.  I only hope that i have and will continue to show you the same ammount of love that you have given me.   

Thanks for all the memory making!