You've Got A Friend In Me...

So I'm pretty sure I could waste my life away on BuzzFeed. I'm not even going to say how much time I spent on there a few weeks ago when I came across this shared list about best friends. I loved it, obviously, but it got me thinking about BFFs....or at least best girl friends. I love my husband, and of course he's my best friend, but it's just not the same as having a fellow female with whom to gossip, swap clothes (okay fine, I wear Dan's clothes, but I draw the line at him wearing mine), or even complain about how I painted the kitchen yellow but it's just not quite the right yellow, you know?

Then a few weeks ago I read a post by Baby Sideburns (who, incidentally, writes a hilarious blog for parents and non-parents alike) about how hard it is to make friends as an adult. And she's right :: when you're in school you're with the same group of kids for seven hours a day for years at a time. How can you not make friends with some of them? Then in college, you're surrounded by people studying the same thing as you are, who are in the same clubs (or at the same clubs), living in the same dorms, and sneaking into the same bars. But then what? As Baby Sideburns says, as an adult there just aren't the same kind of bonding opportunities as when you were younger. And a best friend? Forget about it :: at this point it feels like everyone already has one. There are the girls who've known each other since birth because their moms were in the same prenatal yoga class, the girls who bonded (literally?) over glue in pre-K and never looked back, or the girls who got craaaazy living a semester abroad in college and now always use that annoying opener, "Hey, remember that one time in Germany...". Ugh. Jealously - all around.

Because us redheads gotta stay together

Now it's stupidly hard to make good friends that can have the longevity to even get to the best friend level, assuming they don't already have one. But I've had some great best friends along the way! In elementary school Abbey and I could spend entire afternoons playing Dr. Mario or scrolling through song rolls on the piano (we could pedal a mean "Wind Beneath My Wings"), and I still have her parent's phone number burned into my memory. But my family moved around a few times when we were younger, and let's be honest, at that age being best friends depends more on slumber parties and perfecting cartwheels than on long-distance phone calls and postcards. Luckily for Facebook, we still get to periodically check in with each other.

Remember how excited you were about
the airline losing your suitcase on this trip?

By middle school I apparently hadn't learned my long-distance lesson because my best friend, Emily, lived literally a thousand miles away. It worked though because tween girl friendship actually do depend on phone calls (remember when the LD minutes cost 10 cents a piece on a land-line and instead of being unlimited on a cell phone?). Even though distance eventually did get the better of our LYLAS and SWAK era, we now live within thirty minutes of each other and while sometimes we may not get a chance to connect for a few months, when we do it's like the conversation never stopped.

Then in high school I hated group projects so much that whenever they were assigned I would shoot my best friend, Ali, that look like, "we're in this together, right?". Her meticulousness nicely complimented my OCD tendencies, plus she had handwriting like you've never seen. We were a perfect match, and when we

I mean, greatness like this
can't possibly be sustained, can it? :-)

weren't composing beautiful projects that would have moved you to tears, we had sleep-overs where we schemed about how we could set up our younger siblings - because then we would somehow be related, right? Eventually college and boys came between us, and our friendship was never really the same. But I still fondly remember when we drove to the mall to get our garters and rhinestone press-on tattoos and for the senior prom. I'm pretty sure we might have been a little over-confident on that adventure.

There's isn't anything about this girl that I don't
love...well, except her geographical location

Feeling lost at college then, it was perfect to find someone like Sarah. She bought me "balence" and is the type of friend where you feel like you can say or do anything because they're going to love you just for who you are. She stood by my side when Dan and I got into a big fight our senior year that seemed like a huge deal at the time, and later she physically stood by my side when I married him. But now she lives in LA and I live here. Since the last time we've been together, we've each started and finished graduate school, and I've had a baby who's not even really a baby anymore. It's just not as easy as when we spent hours a day in each others company. And I miss her.

So where's my best friend now? If I'm Tina Fey, where's my Amy Poehler? Don't get me wrong :: I'm grateful for the friends I do have. I like having my teacher friends from school, the girls from my old job, the girls from grad school, and the moms from Henry's play group, and all the others (plus I obviously spend way too much time on Facebook which makes me feel like I have even more friends then I actually do). But I don't feel like I get to see any of them with any sort of frequency...especially the Facebook ones (joke). And I don't feel like I have that one girl friend who's my best friend - and any contenders already have a best friend of their own. 

Is this what happens when you get married and have kids? You don't have as much time to nurture your friendships, so they're not as strong or as numerous as when you were younger? You can't devote time to a BFF because your schedule is full of play-dates, laundry, much needed date nights and building epic forts? Am I the only one that feels this way? Kind of...lonely for girl time? Or do I just need to spend less time on BuzzFeed and more time trying to make new friends to hopefully meet someone who needs a best friend too? Because that's going to be easier said than done :: have you seen this one? You're welcome.

Best Friends Forever? I'll drink to that.