Friendships

You come to understandings at various points in your life. An example...people tend to realize when they've grown up or satisfied some rite of passage. I find I'm more open to such understandings the older, or maybe wiser, I get.

Last night was no exception. Although I am more of a partier than my husband, I recognize that he is not and that large crowds make him very uncomfortable. That said I see it as my responsibility to help him find comfort in any setting. So despite how much fun it would have been to have a bit too much to drink, dance, and party the night away, I spent Endymion by his side...back from the crowds, in a place where he feels more at ease.  He's not only my husband, he's my friend.  And I take care of my friends.

Isn't that what friendships and relationships are all about? Finding where they fit best and can cultivate. I miss a slightly wilder life but being with him is where I what to be.

And that leads me to other relationships.  I'm one of a trio of long time friends. I find that over the years our relationships (between me and the other two and between me and each of the other two) have changed over time. And that's not a bad thing. It's the meaning of maturity...bringing things to where they need to be at any point in time.

Both friends got married young and had children. All the while I was single and child free. Our relationships were constant throughout but different and at times more or less intense.

Now that we are back together again, the relationships are still morphing. In one I find a more frank confidant...someone I can talk to about serious issues and some of the more esoteric topics I enjoy; whereas with the other, I find a sense of self. It’s like a remembrance of a time long gone but warmly remembered and maybe missed more than I ever expected. Nevertheless, these two women are as important to me today as they were way back...and now I have the added layers of husbands and children to add depth to our relationships which were once so simple and easy.

It’s in their children that I see so much of the innocence I remember about my friends. That said, as far as terms of self, their children are far beyond where we were at their age. They are all unique and their own women. They differ in levels of maturity, expression, poise, and sadly sometimes manners, but all are true mixtures of both their mothers and fathers. Although I've been in and out of their lives forever, it isn't really until now that I've seen them as the women they've become. The one I thought I'd be closest to today I am not but I love her all the same. The one I feel the most in common with, I didn't expect. The other two still have some growing to do. But in the end, they're a part of those long time relationships I treasure each and every day!