Girlfriends

Last night we were shopping in what will remain an undisclosed store due to prejudices against it, so take a guess, LOL. In any case my daughter, Amber, who will be 6 in September sees a little girl she knows and they run to each other and do the whole hug and smiles all around thing. The mother who missed this all because she was getting a cart kind of walked toward us catching the tail end of it and I suppose recognized Amber from school or day care and said to her daughter to say hi to her friend "don't be ignorant like that." I think my jaw hit the floor with an audible thud. Now the word ignorant was one I heard often growing up, it seemed to be a word of choice in the ghetto. There were a few words and phrases of choice. Ignorant, trifling, hoe, yo mama, word, jeepers, switching, those are just a few I can think of off the top of my head at 6am. Anyway when this child's mother said ignorant to her 5 or 6 year old it flooded my mind with memories, not especially good ones.

Amber said her good byes and as we walked away I asked John did you hear all that. I explained it all to him and also explained that the mother did not even give the girl the benefit of the doubt and that when she was away for a good few minutes the girls did speak, but she automatically jumped all over the girl. I really felt bad for the kid. Later I asked Amber what her friend's name was and she told me her name was "V." I had an AHHHH moment, it was all making sense. Amber the same V from daycare last summer? Yes. The same V you told me was so mean all the time? Yes. AHHHHH. Maybe, just maybe, she is so mean all the time because she learned it from Mommy???? Just a thought. The apple never falls far from the tree, learned behavior and all that fun stuff.

Something else also struck me as funny though. Amber and V greeted each other as though they were the best of friends. Girls always did this in my experience. Smiles, hugs, and fakeness all around, face to face. Then the claws came out behind the backs. Amber never ever had a single nice thing to say about this girl. She is mean, I don't like her, she doesn't share, she says nasty things, I won't play with her anymore. Then they see each other and it's sunshine and lace. I was never like that, ever. I was always one who dealt it like I felt it. I guess that's why I was never one with very many girlfriends. I am glad Amber has learned at an early age not to be like I was. Or at least to let bygones be bygones. Having girlfriends is important. You really don't learn that until you don't have very many. Is having girlfriends worth the expense of being a little "fake" sometimes, I don't know, but I struggle with that sometimes.

Friends

About five years ago I met a great group of women. These women have been there through thick and thin. I love them like they were sisters. We share with each other some of our most intimate thoughts, our joyous occasions, our losses, our hurt, births, deaths. You name it we have probably gone through it together. Had it not been for these women I probably would never have breastfed my daughter for as long as I did, I probably would never have been introduced to the addictive world of cloth diapering, I probably would parent far different from I do, and I would be lonely. You see they are really some of my bestest friends.

There hasn't always been harmony, we have had our trials and I think maybe it has made us stronger in a sense. We accept each other for who we are, faults included. We seem to understand each other to a degree that is fairly unusually, I think in our situation. See we have never met. Well, scratch that a few of us have, some of us have spoke on the phone here or there. We are scattered throughout the country. We met through message boards when we were pregnant with our babies who are now 4 years old.

I understand a lot of people think this is starnge. Friends with people you have never met, how do you know who they really are, maybe one's a man, etc. People don't get it. That's okay though I have become accustomed to people not understanding, I have realized a lot of people think this is strange, some people think we can't really be true friends. But little do they know there are few truer friends than we are. John, my husband, at first thought this was the strangest thing ever, friends you can't physically go see, Holly you are nuts. But after all these years he has become so used to them being part of my life, he doesn't even question it or bat an eye anymore.

If I won the lottery, literally the very first thing I would do, after someone revived me of course, would be to arrange a meeting for us. I so wish we lived closer to one another so that wouldn't be necessary. I would have this get together and plan for one at least yearly. I want our children to play, bond, grow close like we have. Is that asking for too much, LOL? Each one of us brings a bit of ourselves to the group of us, the dynamic we have is awesome, and I want our families to share that. Now you think I am crazy, huh?

Well, anyway really there is no point to all this except to say I have some of the best friends ever, no I never met them, but they are as real as you are sitting there reading this. Each of the four of them mean the world to me, and I thought I would let everyone know. =)