I am referring to girlfriends as well as my genetic sisters, because I have a lot sisters who are also girlfriends. Mostly, I am talking about loyal friends (genetic sisters and cousins included) that are with you through thick and thin, no matter how long you’ve known them. There are some that I just don’t get to see very often, that have stayed connected over the years. I know they are there, and that they have my back if I need them. I also watch their backs, and I am there for them. There are sisters that I have known for less time, but non-the-less, are sisters of the same caliber. Sistas are Sistas, no matter how long you have known them.
We start learning the value of a friend when we are very young. It starts as soon as we start to trust, and I do believe that begins with our parents. We go to M.D.O. (Mother’s Day Out), which they didn’t have when my girls were babies. It’s just three hours or so at a church nursery or a day care facility. It’s enough to get you started, especially if you don’t have siblings by then. Then there’s pre-school, pre-K and kindergarten. This is where you learn to play with your peers. You also learn to share. Sharing includes bringing home any communicable diseases that happen to be going around. Under this heading, you start developing immunities to certain diseases. You can thank your newly forming friends for this. After all you are drooling, gumming and gnawing anything you can get into your mouths, and so are they.
By the time we reach the first grade, we’ve decided that there are some friends that are better than others….OR that you like some better than others. You play with them at recess and you sometimes have “play dates”. That’s another thing we didn’t have then…or we didn’t call it that. This is where your friend’s mom brings your friend over to play at your house for a few hours, or you go over to their house. This whole scenario is part of the growing friendship that flourishes as we grow older. We share secrets, toys and play games, take sides and sometimes argue with these B.F.F.E.s. That just means you’ve had enough, and it’s time to part company for the day.
As we grow older still, our friendships grow more intense. We know that our Sistas are there for us, and that they would scratch the eyes out of anyone that would hurt or use any disparaging language or actions towards us. And, we would do the same for them.
I will say right here, that there are also male B.F.F.E.s, even if they are a bit like Lenny and Squiggy. They are also close confidants and loyal friends. They were Bob, Jim, Jerry, Chuck, Mike, and Terry, to name a few. They were the big brothers that would entertain, advise and protect us from all others. They were there to help, and hang around with you at the house and at the local Diary Queen. Woe be it to anyone who steps on your toes in front of them.
Secretly, these guys hoped that if they could be this for you, then you would eventually raise their status to the boyfriend Level. I was never aware of that fact until recent years, until one of you slipped that choice piece of information to me in a casual conversation. Hey! I know you guy will understand, and accept a compliment as it is intended. A male B.F.F.E. level was the highest level, and a friend for life. To tell the truth, we couldn’t have grown up without you guys, and I mean that from my heart.
Then, there were the C.Y.O. guys (clowns) that hung around in the sweltering summer days, and rainy, cold Saturdays, playing double Solitaire and Anaconda with us in the living room, or cooking pancakes at midnight in our kitchen after a dance or party. Pat, Art, Joe, Harry, David, and Robert. There were more, but these were the constants. What a colorful bunch. I wish I knew where they all are, and how they are doing. They were such a huge part of my formative years, and yes, they were among my very best friends. I recently re-connected with one of them, and it was like a reunion with a long lost brother. It just made me very happy to know that he was happy and busy in life. The same life-long friend award goes to these guys...from the heart.
Our C.Y.O. group was a close knit bunch. Kathy, is my Sista who has had my back since we were in junior high school. We went to separate schools, but we sure went through a bunch together. Adolescence was hard on both of us, and we were best friends through the whole thing. We double dated a lot, and I think Kathy had more of a conscience than I did, therefore being more of a conscience for me. After all, she went to a Catholic girls school. With a simple question, she could bring me back to reality. “Missy! Aren’t you afraid of going to Hell?” I only considered for very brief second that she was out to wreck my fun before taking her words seriously. Kathy has always brought me back to my ground, and my reality. To this day, her words of foreboding echo in my ears. She was the matron of honor at my wedding. I truly miss hearing from her when there is a lapse in our communications.
Since we went to public schools, there was a separate set of lifetime sisters. This was harder, since there were different “cliques”. It was hard to know who to hang out with. These girls were all friends, and we all contributed to the same cause of our class … to have fun, grow up and graduate. There are the constants like Ginger, Jackie, Ann, Vickie, Carolyn, Lyna, Nancy, Dee, Brenda and Diane; just to name a few. There were many, many more, but we all parted ways after graduation. Crossing paths occasionally, over the years we remain friends and of the highest caliber. Thanks to modern technology, we can keep in touch at the touch of a key board. We get together again at class reunions to acknowledge similarities and differences that we’ve been through growing up, and living as adults … college, marriage, children and grandchildren; and still growing, comparing what our lives have been like, where we’ve been and where we all are now.
There are friends that we’ve made in our life through spouses and or other friends. Madolyn is my dear friend that I met at least 33 years ago. Our husbands worked together and were eventually partners in their own venture. When she and her husband and children moved here from Beaumont, she and I started car-sharing every morning for about 5 years. Whoever didn’t drive was the one to read the newspaper and/or find a decent radio station to listen to. Thursday was Cajun music day, and that was a real hoot. We concluded that these hour-long rides to and from work were our therapy sessions. We laughed and cried together. We were like magpies. There was seldom a moment of silence, and there still isn't ... a moment of silence.
While driving to and from work, menopause was the main topic, since we were both in the throes of the big “M”. We were always comparing notes as to what would and would not work, concluding that the only thing to do was to get on some kind of HRT that would allow us to continue to work without beheading our bosses or co-workers. We were both deprived of sleep, as we had not found an over the counter cure for the night sweats and mood swings.
I don’t mind saying that our rides were pretty exciting. I know you might not think so, but being chased to work by a tornado is pretty exciting. It was pitch black out, and we had no idea there was a tornado on our heels until we heard it on the car radio. My boss had no sympathy for us. He just expected that we’d make it in. Then there was the time when Madolyn’s car finally gave up. I think it was a 16 year old Pontiac that just expired at the toll booth on the way to work one day. Madolyn got very emotional, and I’m not sure it was just that she was scared, but that her old car was finally going to its just reward to the junk yard in the sky. Later, it dawned on her that she would get a new car out of this incident. We ended up coasting to just the other side of the toll booth. We ran, hand in hand, across 6 lanes of traffic to the building where we would find a phone to call her husband to come take care of the dead car … which he did, and very gallantly, I might add. We had no cell phones. Cell phones were in their infant stages. I don’t’ think they were even called cell phones yet … more like “car phones” At any rate, those phones were as big as a combat boot back then, and neither of us had one.
I can always keep my cool through something traumatic. However when all is said and done, and everything has been taken care of; the catastrophe is over, my adrenalin is still so pumped that there is no place for it to go, so I sit down on the curb to cry. My friend Madolyn is always there with her nerves finally gathered up to soothe me…sitting on the curb with me helping me cry the adrenalin away.
We have a circle of friends that we go to dinner with on Friday nights. My Sistas, Donna, Becky and Karin unite in getting us together for dinner at whatever restaurant we haven’t been to in a while. The guys put in their bids, but ultimately, we decide. We always meet at the chosen restaurant at 6:45 p.m. We are truly sisters in the closest sense. They have my back and I have theirs … when ever and whatever they want or need. We argue like sisters and take care of each other in the same breath of the arguement. We love our Friday night ritual, and we love eachother.
I have recently become reunited with old friends from 40+ years ago. A special teacher has joined our ranks of Sistas. It had dawned on me that my Sistas have no age barrier. I’m everybody’s age … and they are mine; Sistas in life through feast and famine, thick and thin. New sistas in the fold, and all is well and good. Sistas are forever.
