Friends

I had the greatest adventure last night,... but that I will blog about tomorrow when I have all the pictures and videos online to show off. For now,... I have thoughts that are in need of spilling out. So you are stuck with this blog while you wait for the great one full of excitement later. (Was that mean? I don't think it was mean.... did you think it was mean?)

So anyway, when I was in high school, I had 2 friends whom I called my "best" friends. They were the "best" because they were the ones who called me every day, looked for me in a crowd, chose to sit next to me at lunch and in classes, invited me to parties and shopping sprees and sleepovers, and would come if I invited them to something I was doing. They would tell me their honest opinions of things like how I looked or how did I do or "do you think he likes me?" and they made my teenage years in high school something I could live through. And then something less than positive happened to me and it came between me and my friends. The only thing that saved my feelings at the time was a new best friend---who became my husband. He is STILL my best friend and has made my dreams come true (literally! but like I said, I'll blog that tomorrow if I can...haha!).

There came a time in my life where I became lonely for MORE companionship, though. It isn't that Tommy "wasn't enough." I just needed female friendship TOO. I needed to feel like someone would look for me in a crowd, or would come sit next to me if they saw me sitting down. I needed to know that I mattered enough to someone that they would invite me to their parties or to go shopping,... and I had lost that before graduating high school. We moved out to Idaho and I did have one friend that I felt was a pretty good friend. She's still a friend, although I've not seen her since we moved back to Georgia and contact with her now consists of facebook posts. Still, it eased my ache for friendship and a sense of belonging.

I'm a lot older now (*sigh*) and my yearning for a close girlfriend has fizzled out a little. I don't know if its because i gave up or what, but I don't ache as much, although I still think it would be nice.

Last night, I had my eyes opened wide. Ok, so you get a preview of my next blog...

We got tickets to a Harlem Globetrotters basketball game. What made it even better is that it was a benefit game with proceeds going to the Central High School Marching Band to raise money for them to go to the Rose Bowl Parade in January. That's my band... so it was just all the better. I have a friend who teaches at the school, and she got me tickets to go. I thought that was nice of her (she could have paid for them...that would have been EVEN NICER...but that's ok). I've been on pins and needles waiting for the 4th to come, and finally it did. The doors to the WGC (yeah its still West Georgia College to me) colliseum were to open at 6pm. My friend Annette sent me a text message to tell me what time,.... and I sent her one back saying I would be in line waiting for the doors to open at 5:30!! Well,... at 5:30pm, I stepped up to the door and got a place in line. I looked up to see a hand waving at me and saying "You DID come right at 5:30!" She looked for me in a crowd.

Just as the doors were getting ready to open, she looks back to where I am and asks "Where are we going to sit?" and I called back "as close to the floor as we can get!" She wanted to sit next to me! So we get inside and of course the crowd is rushing in like water bursting out of a dam. Annette heads off to get a good seat and we're not far behind her. She starts on one side, and we're just a little ways behind her trying to keep an eye on where she is... she's looking back at us and waving us in. We had to finagle our way to where she ended up,... and she was holding seats for us. She was serious about sitting by me! And it was more than just sitting there to be sitting there,... she laughed with me, joked about things we saw and enjoyed the game WITH me. It was like I was invited to her party.

During the game, Mesa came to sit next to me. I asked her what was wrong since she WAS in a less compacted end of the row where she had elbow room... why did she want to sit in the tightly packed section of the row? She told me it was because of the people sitting in front of her smelled like cigarettes and bubble gum and it made her sick. But... shortly after, she went back to that seat. Maybe 15 minutes later, she was back to sit by me and I asked her what was up. She told me "Manti isn't as much fun to sit by as you are."

*inserts proud mama tears*

So look at my friends,...

My daughter and Annette are not my ONLY friends,but I would dare say I can count my BEST friends on one hand, and that my daughter and Annette are amongst the first fingers in that count!

Thank you both for being my BESTS!