My BFF

My students are always talking and writing about their current "BFF."  In second grade, your BFF can change weekly, and even daily.  Oftentimes I notice that my students' current BFF is always the other girl sitting at their table.  (Boys don't ever talk about BFFs.)  These conversations and journal entries always get me thinking...

Who is my BFF?

Answer:  I don't have one.  If I had to choose, I would most definitely choose my mom at this point in my life.  Why not choose my mom?  She knows me better than anyone, and she has known me longer than anyone.  We have laughed together, cried together, fought, and made up, just like any best friends do.  She is the person I call when I need to talk.  She is the person I think of when I need to go shopping.  She is, by my definition, my best friend.  I wish, more than anything, that she did not live three hours away!

Anyway, here's the basis for this post.  I don't have a BFF.  Often that makes me sad.  I don't know what it's like to grow up with someone and watch them change from elementary to middle to high school and then to an adult.  I don't know what it's like to continue a friendship for more than a few years and not have to turn that friendship into a long-distance relationship.  Outside of my family I have exactly two people that I still consider "friends" after many years.  And even now, we are merely Facebook "friends" that send Christmas cards to each other.  

I'm not a bad person.  I consider myself a good friend.  I've just had a lifetime of experiences that make it difficult to remain friends with people, mostly for logistical reasons.  I attended my regular public elementary school, but then chose to attend a GT middle school in a neighboring city.  There were only about 4 people from my elementary school at my middle school, and I quickly lost touch with my friends.  Then I ended up going back to my regular public high school, which had about 5 people from the middle school.  Again, it's hard to hold onto friendships when you're 14, can't drive, and don't have a cell phone!  Then, as most of you know, I moved from NC to Cincy when I was a junior in high school. I didn't make many friends after I moved, and I took some of them with me to college, but we lost touch. Mostly because they had better friends that they had known longer.  I don't blame them - I'd probably be the same way.  When I moved to Toledo after college, I quickly lost touch with many of my college friends because, again (in my opinion) many of them went home to towns where they had better friends that they had known longer.  

I have wonderful friends now, and I wouldn't trade them for the world.  They have done a fantastic job of welcoming little old "lost" me to the area and making me feel like I finally have lifelong friends.  I still don't have a BFF, and unfortunately there's nothing I can do about that.  It makes me sad every once in a while, like when I want to see a movie that my hubby doesn't want to see and I can't find anyone to go with me, or like when I want to go shopping and don't want to drag my hubby and kiddo with me, and especially when I have an argument or a situation where I just want someone to cry with.  I know that I can do these things with any of the friends I have made here.  I just have this internal struggle that tells me that these people will always have better things to do and more important friends to hang out with.  I feel like an idiot for even thinking this way because I have a number of friends that I know would do anything for me.  It's just the whole "I've known you less time than any of your other friends, and so I feel less important" syndrome that I have going.  I can't help it.  It's who I am, and I appreciate the fact that you all love me in spite of my paranoia.  

Thank you, all of you, for being such amazing friends.  I would not have survived in this frozen arctic tundra without you.  You are the BEST!