Friendship

Sometimes your friends are right next door. You can stop in anytime you want, because the door is always open. There’s a place set at the table, whether you show or not. You trim their hedges without asking, and when you arrive home one day, your lawn is mowed without explanation or expectation.

Sometimes your friends are all in one place. In the high school cafeteria, you swap lunch money from day to day without bothering to keep track, because, hey, I’ll catch you tomorrow, ok?

Sometimes your friends are under your own roof. If you are lucky, you’re married to a very good friend. They read your moods and know when to hug you and when to leave you alone.

When you were 5 years old, everyone you met was instantly a friend. A little boy seen briefly at the mall, a girl you climbed the monkey bars with, it didn’t matter whether you ever see them again or not. Instant bonding, quickly forged, just as quickly forgotten, but no less important.

Sometimes friends are always right there, even when they’re not right there. You lose touch for a week, a month, a year. Then you pick up the phone and begin exactly where you left off.

And sometimes friends know exactly when you need them. If you’ve been friends long enough, it almost defies explanation. You reach for the phone to call and it rings under your hand. Or you sit at home musing on how to get through a situation, and they call you with the answer from 450 miles away. How does this happen? One mind, living in two brains? I don’t actually mind not knowing. Just the circumstance is cause for wonder and joy.

Thanks, friend.