Friends are one of my favorite topics.  Ever.

Why?

Because I have known so many, and I really cannot imagine what my life would have been like without them.  I started early, although I am certain I cannot remember all the way back to the first one.  My first memory are of inanimate ones:  Joey, my bald doll that I lost somewhere along the way in four or five moves back and forth between Texas and Arkansas before I was 5 or 6 years old; and Carolina, my imaginary friend, who sometimes, I’m sure to her dismay, was “embodied” in an old rag mop that we had at our single-wide in the Harrison County countryside.

The next memory of a friend that I have is from when we lived on Pocono street — his name was Rocky, and my 2 primary memories of him are:  1)  the time that we were both at my house, with my maternal grandfather babysitting, and one of us thought it would be a good idea to rip the pages out of a storybook of mine, poke them into the gas heater, and set the carpet on fire; and 2) the time that we were playing outside, walking along the flower garden’s brick border, and I pushed him off, and he got a bloody nose.

Thankfully, over time, my understanding of friendship and care evolved from one of one-sided “interaction” and innocent anti-social behaviors to one of mutual love, care, trust, and confidence.

From there, I have added to my life in so many wonderful ways.  Friends have seen me through break-ups with boyfriends, illness, family trials, and the ever-evolving transition from being a singleton to being a wedded wife.  Perhaps one of the times in my life that I am most thankful for having had a friend was from pregnancy through being a breastfeeding mom working full-time while in graduate school.  Honestly, without my friend Julie through that few years of sheer insanity and complete corporal exhaustion, I do not know if I would still be standing.  I got knocked down a number of times during those years — because of being tired, because of feeling overwhelmed, and feeling certain that no one else in the world could identify with what was going on.  I should clarify that I knew, cognitively that there were millions of other women who could identify with me, but none of them were working by my side, in the classroom right next to me, and had a son a mere 2 months to the day older than my own.  That, my friends, is nothing but Providence.

With most of the people I call my friends, I share a strong faith in Jesus Christ, and with others, I share a strong mutual respect for our individual rights to choose where to place that faith, if it exists at all.

My prayer is that my friends treasure me like I treasure them.   Even when we aren’t able to see or hear from each other all that often.

When we do, it’s like we were never apart.