Saturday, February 16, 2008

More Love...


Last week I was thinking about old loves and this week I am still thinking of love....but a very different sort of love. One that I find can't live without.

The love of a girlfriend.

I have lots of girlfriends, I always have. I am social, talkative, outgoing and friendly. I like my life to be filled with people. I love meeting people, getting to know them, listening to what they have to say. Every now and then one strikes a chord with me and a different sort of closeness develops. A closeness I treasure, a closeness I need.

It is this closeness I am thinking of today and wanting to write a different sort of "love letter"... one to the girls in my life. The girls I treasure.

Each of these women have impacted me in a different way, each relationship different from the other. Some are advisors, some I advise. Some treat me to the most exquisite laughter one can imagine and others I provide laughter to. Some cry on my shoulder, some unburden themselves to me and some simply make me crazy. I still love them nonetheless.

I love them all.

This past summer I found myself critically ill and in an ICU bed. I was frightened like I have never been before mostly because my life had never been threatened until this time. My friend Sara lied her way into the unit and once at my bedside laid her head on my chest and simply said "I am here". That's all I needed and I finally cried the tears I had been hiding from my family for two days....unable to release them but to this most precious friend. I love her.

I have another friend, a dear one, one who drives me crazy. She is the only person on earth who has gotten away with grabbing me and forcing me to look in a mirror and lived to tell the tale. She is tough with me, hard on me. She doesn't pull any punches. She calls me out. She yells at me. It's quite possible that she is not afraid of me. I love her for it.

I have other friends who come looking for me when I am quiet, wondering where I am and what I am doing. I love them. I have other friends who support me, take time to tell me they enjoyed something I wrote, something I said. I love them. I have a friend who showed great courage in approaching me in an attempt to tell me something she thought I should know, something delicate. It didn't matter that I had long known what she wanted to say, her courage struck me. I love her for it. I have a friend who has trusted me with something so private, so sacred that I guard her words like none other I have been given. I love her for this.

I have shared parts of my life with these women and they with me. I am the better for knowing every last one of them. They have filled me with all that I need to walk around each day...kindness, compassion and some wicked laughter.

Each one knows who they are...

Each one knows I love them...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your words. I love to read everything you write. I love you and it's nice to be considered your friend. I have also just learned new things about you. You are my treasure.