The Other’s Gold

You know that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine is thinking about how she doesn’t have any girlfriends anymore and Kramer says to her “Of course not. You’re a man’s woman.” That used to be true of me. I had very few female friends. One year for Christmas, my mom bought me a book entitled “Friendships With Women.” She was obviously getting pretty worried, unlike Kramer, who seemed to address the issue as if it were an irreversible issue. I don’t think I read the book (sorry mom!) but somewhere along the way, I started making friends with women, lots of women, of all different ages, with whom I have shared so much of my life.

My friendships with Cheryl, Kathy, Laurie, Ellen, Kristi, Allison, Lydia, Carolyn, Julie, Renee, and on and on and on, are the friendships of my life. They are the people I still call for recipes and for laughter. They are my advisors and I give them an ear full too (although these days I mostly find myself badgering them about not missing their yearly physicals). They are the women who I long to see, many of whom went from being my babysitters, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, mentors and Bible Study teachers to intimate friends. I miss them all terribly.

I realized this week that I’m making new friendships with women down here that are similar to the ones I made up north. They are in their infancy and they probably can’t be what the others are, but they have a great deal of potential and I need to give them enough space to grow.

Tuesday night I went to Bible Study and it was pretty good. The room set up was changed to a big square of tables, making it easier to communicate with everyone since we could all see each other. There were some really sweet women there and I’m excited to get to know them more as we study together.

Last night I went out for dinner with some women from our Sunday school class. It was a really good time…great group of women with plenty of diversity and plenty of humor.

So, I’m making new friends, but I’m keeping the old too [So glad I learned that song in Brownies back in the day. Come to think of it, Brownies might have been the reason I stopped being friends with girls in the first place. I’ll tell you that story sometime] .