On True Friendships

Recently I had the chance to have lunch with a friend I've known for the past 23 years.  We got to know each other through a couples' Bible study, back then, before kids (10, to be exact!).  Now that we have kids, we still get together for birthdays and usually once a year trips to Asheville.  But day to day, we don't really talk or see much of the other.

Still, it's the female thing that keeps our friendship alive; it's the fact that we've nurtured an intertwining of our lives together which can keep our friendship vital to the other.  It's a mystical thing, this "friendship," this growing of hearts and minds and memories that takes place over days, months, years, and decades.

What is it that creates this special type of relationship?  It's the sharing of who we truly are, our inner thoughts, our experiences, our deep feelings.  I have a few girlfirends, "gf's" with whom I have the honor of sharing that type of bond; I don't get that with everyone, and it takes time, and effort.  It also takes honesty.  For some, this last ingredient is the thing that's hardest to share.  But this is what I"m talking about when I say that "women want to know and be known"... not all women, for sure, but most.  We don't want to just wear our heart on our sleeves for others to judge or for vanity's sake.  We really want to know each other.  I'm not sure men really have that same desire... it doesn't matter.  I just know that that's what's important to me, and I'm thankful for my friend who likewise shares her "real self" with me, one of my "bgf's" who I can call at a time of need, or in sorrow, or in ecstatic joy.