People Let Me Tell Ya 'Bout My Best Friend

Do you have a Best Friend? One you turn to if you feel like laughing and/or crying. One who you have everything in common with? One who likes exactly the same things you do? One who reacts to life the same way you do?

It took me a long time to find my Best Friend. Almost 36 years. For years I “interviewed” a lot of different people to find that one, “Best” Friend. During this interviewing process, I thought I had found the perfect candidate. She seemed to be just perfect. She loved dogs like me, she loved to cook like me, she was even athletic like me, but… she didn’t have the same passion for decorating as me. So we had to break up.

Then I found another candidate that seemed to fit my Best Friend criteria. She liked to talk about “real issues,” she liked a good glass of merlot and she laughed at all my jokes but… she just doesn’t have the parenting skills I am looking for. So I fired her.

One day it dawned on me. I was going through “Best Friend Candidates” like my kids go through white socks! So I stopped searching for my Best Friend.

Spring came, and I had a gardening bug. I wanted to shop for perennials, so I called Georgene. We went shopping for flowers, planted, got muddy and laughed in the yard. “Thanks friend. It was a great day,” I told her.

Another time I struggled for a solution to a circumstance at work, so I called Lina. Being a real estate executive, she knew just what to do. “Thanks friend,” I said.

There was another time I struggled with a large group coming over for dinner, so I asked Aimee. She rattled off a simple spinach lasagna recipe. Just what I needed. “Thanks friend. You saved me,” I told her.

So here it is… do we all really need ONE Best Friend? Maybe what we really need are a lot of friends with a lot of great and different qualities. Maybe we can roll them all up into our one True Best Friend. Then instead of judging our friends against ourselves and our values, our likes and our dislikes, maybe we will be more accepting, compassionate and kind to not only our friends, but ourselves as well.

So to my True Best Friend (and you all know who you are), I say “Thanks Friend.”