Friendship

By definition, we can really only have one BEST friend. Best implying there is a singularity to the title. It’s. The. Best. Period. But since a fairly young age, I’ve always thought that I didn't really want to call any one person my “best friend“, b/c realistically, who can live up to that expectation? Reciprocally, I can’t. 🤷‍♀️ Still, to just call someone a close friend or a good friend seemed to minimize their role in my life. So I’ve typically always said I have many best friends. Many + best is kind of a classic oxymoron, right? But you have the friend that you call to share the funniest story. Or the most embarrassing story. Or the friend that knows your history so intimately that they already know where the story is going. Or the one that helps you strategize over something, or gives great advice where you come up short. The analytical friend. The empathetic friend. The friend that lets you bitch. The one that lets you cry. The one with whom you’d never shed a tear - and that’s a good thing too. The one that you can rely on to say, “it’s happy hour somewhere”. 💃🍷The friend that helps you choose which outfit looks better. The one that will drop everything to come to your aid. Many of us check a lot of those boxes, but all of them??? It’s a tall order! I think I’m really solid in my strengths as a friend. My friends know exactly what I am bringing to the table. Where I excel, where I am deficient. I’ll happily keep trying to improve, but I’m 48. What I have to contribute is likely about as rounded out as it’s going to get. And I don’t feel the need to be anyone’s best friend. I much prefer to be several people’s specific friend that they know has their back on X. Friendships come in so many different packages. New ones. Old ones. Family friendships, and friendships that feel like family. Our friendships sustain us when we are alone. It has been a really long time since I have been truly alone. At least 22 years. I wasn’t prepared for how lonely being alone would feel. I sit really comfortably in solitude. I also sit really comfortably in socializing 5 nights in a row. Luckily, I have friends that fill the gaps between those two. Sometimes they fill them when I’m not even aware they need filling.

After South Carolina, (which was amazing!!!), I went to Mexico for almost 3 weeks. I was visiting our friends - they are definitely family. Manuel and I have been in each other’s lives since I was 17. Craig met him after our first date. I met Annamary before their first date (Manuel crashed her birthday party….drunk). We were in our 20’s.🤦‍♀️ We’ve basically experienced our entire courtships and eventual marriages, together. We’ve had so many visits over the years. So much laughter. We are bonded over more things than I can tell you. That friendship allowed the tears that wanted/needed to flow over my 17 days visiting them. It also allowed for a lot of reminiscing about funny stories, classic Craig emotionally robotic stories 😂, the countless visits they have made to see us in every house and every state we have lived in. Those best friends provided the comfort of the history, the tears, the laughter.

I have two of my best guy friends (when I’m 70 am I still going to be saying “guy friends” like we are 20?), that I love, but I know exactly what is allowable. Mike Goldenbaum from HS years, and Jay Marquis from marrying one of my BF years. 😉 They are closer to Craig’s way of thinking. Jay, especially. When we came home from the hospital we had lots of friends waiting for us at the house. It was important to see their faces, give everyone a chance to say whatever needed to be said, to hang out, laugh, to say goodbye. It was a parade of people all 4 days that we were home. We had a steak dinner one night with champagne. We took C on walks in the neighborhood. He determined when he was done seeing people. He cut it off when he had seen everyone he needed to see. He said to me on the night before his last, “there is only one piece left to take care of.”. It was me….

Hospice wasn’t what made the 4 days so peaceful and relaxing. It was our family/friends. And in this particular story, it was Mike and Jay. We had a complicated oxygen situation that needed a combination of 2 different machines to push out more oxygen than what a single machine could do. They weren’t small either. And C felt so “good” that we would routinely switch from inside to outside, as the weather was beautiful that week. Each time we switched off the machines to move them, he needed supplemental oxygen (tank) for the several minutes it took to get situated. Morgan was of course there every minute too, but Mike and Jay, through personal experience, knew what they were doing with the oxygen. C never even felt nervous about it - it was pretty seamless. They had set everything up before the ambulance brought us home. It was a well-oiled machine. At least as far as I can remember. A huge storm was supposed to be coming and there was serious cause for concern if the power went out. Jay, no-nonsense and OCD level handy and meticulous, brought a back-up generator over as a precaution. Anything logistical that we needed done, they just made it happen. They were on-call for anything.

After C was gone, I still relied a lot on them. I still do. Computer stuff, dude house stuff that was too much heavy lifting for me. Jay came over one day and was sitting in the office, I was sitting down the hall talking to him (Covid distance). He said that Carrie (his wife) had warned him that, “Ashley might be emotional. She might cry.” He assured her I wouldn’t do that. When he relayed the story to me, we both started laughing. Earlier when I said, “The one with whom you’d never shed a tear”, that would be Jay. 😂 He is the super dependable friend that will pretty much move mountains to help, he is Johnny-on-the-spot, but you best not be showing up all teary eyed! He reminds me a lot of Craig in that way. It’s not that they both wouldn’t be kind in such an event, but it would be sooooo awkward. I just picture someone sobbing, while getting an awkward pat on the arm from Craig or Jay. I sometimes call Jay about something, and our convos turn into a 45 min chat. We talk about a multitude of things. None emotional. But great chats. Until Jay abruptly terminates them. He claims that with all my talking I don’t hear him say he needs to go. I don’t buy this explanation. Here is how I think it actually goes (insert topic of choice):

Me: yeah, so did you see where the DOW closed (🤓)

Jay: bye (click)

That’s what I hear on my end. 😂

Mike is certainly somewhat stoic, but there is a little more room for emotional talk. A little. It’s typically met with some positive reinforcement, a push to sort of accept and keep moving forward. He’s an attorney - there’s a voice of reason. He will send me a pic of Craig’s bike to let me know it’s being put to good use, or tell me which book of Craig’s he and his oldest son are reading together before bed. Reminders that Craig is present in people’s lives. He always checks in if he hasn’t heard from me in a while.

Craig’s BF Mark calls me most Mondays, sometimes he skips a week or two. He’s my laugh and cry friend. An unusual mix for a guy. We pretty much laugh during our whole conversation, but I have had some panicked sobbing calls to him. I mean, “shit, why did I pick up the phone” kind of calls for a man. But he just stays on as long as I need. Always shedding light on Craig, and interpreting my panic in a way that talks me off the ledge, and makes me see things from a calmer perspective. More logical interpretation, less emotional panic. In a good way. Not a dismissive way.

I wouldn’t even know where to begin when it comes to my girlfriends. They are the lifeline. Always have been. We have been through teenage angst, young break-ups, marriages, children, divorce, deaths. Those are the big things. We’ve also been through insecurities (weight, mirror reflection, relationship rejection), job accomplishments, moments of empowerment, moments of failure. My female friendships have always filled my spirit, powered up my confidence, softened me a little around the edges. I’m not voted ‘most emotionally available’ in my group of friends, but all of their warmth and uniqueness helps to round me out. That’s the beauty of good friendships. You become a better person through some sort of BF osmosis. They don’t all stand the test of time. Sometimes there is a shelf life, and that's ok too. It doesn’t lessen the impact it had on your life. It just closes a chapter that likely needed to end.

I’m in Dallas for a little more than a week before leaving until next Spring (obviously coming home for C’s celebration). I’ve had nonstop plans since being home. Lots of friend time. Going out with girlfriends, reconnecting with old couple friends, family time, Sunday Funday, the list goes on and on. My friend Carrie threw a lovely impromptu birthday dinner for me. I’m not a birthday celebrator. At all. But she gently nudged me to go along with it, and it was actually totally fun! 🎈🎈

Have you ever done a fast? A cleanse? Some sort of a mental or physical reboot where you feel really alert and sharp. Senses heightened? I’m looking through the clearest friendship lens, as of late. I feel a deep appreciation for the people in my life. That were in both of our lives. I’m noticing more details about them than I ever had before. It makes sense that with a profoundly altering experience, everything is going to shift with it. This piece is just coming into full focus right now. I think Craig and I must be some of the luckiest on that front. I believe in “you reap what you sow”. We must have been sowing the shit out of some good “seeds” along the way!

C was my exception to my theory. He was my best friend. He checked most of the BF boxes. And just on the simplest level, he was the best, for me...

Here are some of my favorite friendship quotes. Enjoy.

• True friends don’t judge each other. They judge other people….together.

• Good friends don’t let you do stupid things….alone

• We are best friends. Always remember that if you fall, I will pick you up….after I stop laughing.

• I hope we’re friends until we die. And then I hope we stay ghost friends and walk through walls and scare the shit out of people.

Anyway, hope you’re enjoying your friends this summer!!! I know I am! Thanks for being in our life. ❤️

Hope this find you all well,

A

With a Little Help from my Friends - The Beatles

https://open.spotify.com/track/3M5PklZ0bZrjQBtPYyiz7F?si=p-kKrG8rS7-43HXJH8oqvw&dl_branch=1

https://youtu.be/0C58ttB2-Qg