Forever friends.... my touch stones

It's funny the way things work out in life.

I've had some eye opening experiences with regard to friendships over the past year.
Heck over the past few months!


Even though I've always known that everyone who smiles at me isn't necessarily my friend, or someone I can trust, it still catches me off guard when things I don't expect come to light.

It's this type of thing that makes me appreciate my forever friends so much more.

I, in no way, mean to take away from my other close friendships with this post.  I am a person who has many "old" friends, some my very close "forever friends" and a few very close newer friends.  Real friends.  People I trust.  People who have come through my life during different seasons, for different reasons and people I love deeply.

This post, however, is about two very specific friends...  Pam and Jill.

This past weekend, I helped Pam say good bye to her brother.  Alongside me was one of my other forever friends, Jill.

Pam, Jill and I spent quite a bit of time together during our younger years.  Adolescence through teens, to twenty something years...to now.

These women know me.
They know more about me than most anyone else on the planet, even my husband, even my closest family.  The three of us lived through things together that would very possibly leave people's jaws hanging - should we ever tell.  We wouldn't.  We know each other. To the core, well beyond what anyone else sees.  We don't talk to each other every day, every week or every month. We sometimes go years without even seeing each other - but if one of us needs - day or night. We're there for each other.  No questions asked.

Again, I say - I take nothing away from my other very close friends - because I know for a fact that I have this in my other friendships.  These friendships are just different.

There are no walls. There's no insecurity or holding back words, wondering what the other would think if we said what we really thought. We say what we need to say.  Period - and we still love each other.

Jill and I already know the pain of losing a brother.  Even though Jimmy was the "older brother", he was only 51 and he was Pam's brother.  Jill and I understand that feeling of the "hole in your heart and soul" when a sibling dies.  It's just one more thing the three of us have together.  Good or bad, we get each other and now there's that.

I hadn't seen Pam since my brother died, six years ago.  I can't even remember.  We only talk via Facebook - or an occasional phone call.  Jill and recently I just started meeting up once a week, if we are able.  She meets me down the street from where my daughter does cheer - because she knows I'd get lost in a paper bag.  :)

Yet when the three of us got together, even in a really crappy situation - time just melted away.  None of us shut up from the second we sat together until the second we left, as if we'd never been apart.  There was no struggling for what to talk about, no weirdness.

...And it was then that all of the silliness that had been going on in my life melted into the nothing.

It didn't matter at all.

The realization that real friendship defies time and space.  There are no walls.  No tip toeing around each other.  No secrets, no lies - no nonsense.  Just love.

THAT is friendship.  Real, true friendship.  No bullshit - no silliness.  Just love.

In touching back with my friends, I was able to see things more clearly.

Sometimes you need to touch back - to those who know you to your core - to see what things really are.

To realize - that if it's too hard - it's not worth it.  Those who know you, know you.  Those who love you, love you.

No walls, no bullshit, no games, no nonsense...  period, end of story.

The real and true friends you can touch back to - bring you back to you.

Thank you for reading my blog!

~Jenn


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