Gratitude for Long-Time Friendships
I was at a friend’s the other night for snacks and drinks. We overheard someone in an adjacent conversation say that she still has her prom dress. I said to the woman with whom I was talking that I only just recently brought myself to get rid of my prom dress, because I loved it so much. She mentioned that the prom dresses she remembers had big poufs and applique flowers (our proms were in the early 90’s). I joked that although that was the style at the time, I grew up in small-town Connecticut, where we fancied ourselves elegant and prided ourselves on our pouflessness.
The notable part here, though, is that I had recently dug out some old pictures with which to make a birthday photo collage for one of my long time friends. I’d done what us really low-tech folks do and took pictures of some old photos of us with my phone, so I could use an app to make a collage. So, I was able to quickly find, out of 6,437 photos, some ancient pictures from my prom.
I showed them to my friend with a sense of fondness, and we commented on the dresses. But really, she marveled at the fact that I could so quickly locate prom photos … in my phone. I marveled too, and quickly said that as a person whose only connection to high school at this point is my closeness with these 3 friends, I was an unlikely person to do that. It was only because I’d recently made that photo collage…
But then, I stopped. I had started to make excuses for perhaps looking like I was too caught up in the past, like one of those adults who never moved past high school and who still yearn for their “glory” days … but then I stopped. I stopped myself because, in that moment, I just felt so lucky. I felt so lucky to have experienced this extraordinary platonic love with these friends I’ve been close with for over 30 years. Knowing how things have turned out, I felt lucky to have these photos depicting us long ago, with so much of our lives ahead of us. I felt fortunate to feel such warmth and affection, as I showed off the photos of us wearing our goofy naivety and precious youth. I felt blessed, because I knew that however much I might later second-guess this conversation and the impression this woman was forming of me, I don’t ever have to second-guess the relationships with the women in those pictures. Those women and those relationships have been proven to last - to overlook, to forgive, to celebrate, to show up … time and time again, even when I have not been at my best. And somewhere along the way, I made the same unspoken commitment to them.
To say I’m grateful doesn’t even come close. If you don’t yet have these friendships in your life, it’s not too late - welcome new friends in and cultivate a variety of kinds of friendships with some focused attention and intention. If you do have these kinds of friendships in your life, take a minute to reflect on the way they make you feel. Then, explicitly communicate, through words or actions, specifically what you want your friends to know - along with the fact that you feel lucky to have them.
