I have been lonely. Partly it's my own fault because I decided to lock myself in my house to do some serious painting. I was commissioned to do a piece for a lady this past February. However....I just started it a few weeks ago because I knew she wasn't going to come back into the area until July. So...I'm a bit of a procrastinator. Anyway, I am making progress on it...but I am getting lonely. Although I love painting, I can't do that all the time and nothing else. Today I was longing to have a cup of coffee with a friend and conversation. Even though I had Fernando Ortega singing in the background and my paintbrushes for company...I felt this emptiness. Blogging definitely helps, but nothing can take the place of a friend "with skin on".
I've had many good friends over the years. God has truly blessed me with wonderful people. Think back. Who was your best friend when you were growing up and how did you spend your time? What things did you do? Do you still know this person? Tell me about it.
15 comments:
I'll go first of course. In grade school, my best friend was Birgit. Her parents were from Germany and when I went to her house, it seemed strange to hear them speaking in German. Sometimes Birgit would answer them in German, but mostly she answered in English...even when they were speaking German. I think she was self-conscious because of me.
Anyway...our favorite thing to do was to go into the woods and imagine we were in the wilderness trying to survive. One day we built a fort out of sticks and junk we found. We would take long sticks and poke them into a creek bed to pretend fish. The leaves we brought up were the fish.
When we were in 4th grade, Birgit's parents decided to move back to Germany. It was very sad. We wrote back and forth for a while...but eventually stopped. A few years later she moved back to the area...but into a rival school district. I remember going to her new house and staying over night...but it was quite a long drive to get there. We eventually lost touch.
When I was about 20 I sent her parents a letter asking for them to help me find her. We arranged a meeting at a restaurant. I was disappointed to find that she had changed quite a bit. She lit up a cigarette and told me about her friends and her basic outlook on life. It was pretty clear that we had entirely different values. I guess the best way to put it is-she was very rough around the edges. She seemed very lost. We didn't seem to have much in common anymore. Even so, I hoped to remain in touch so maybe I could help her find the Lord. I saw her maybe 1 or 2 more times...but haven't seen her now in about 19 years.
Hmmm. I didn't mean to end on such a sad note. I think it's just the mood I'm in.
I have very happy friendships too, honest!!!
My best friend in grade school was Lisa. Our mothers were pregnant with us at the same time and were both older than average (my mom was 38, Lisa's was 40 I think). While we were babies and through our grade school years, they would trade babysitting. We never managed to go to school together. Lisa moved out of the district to a neighboring town before 1st grade and then I moved away before we would have been reunited in Jr. High.
I remember wearing our matching fuzzy sock-slippers and shuffling our feet to build up static electricity and then touch each other. We also played "raft" on a blanket in the living room. We were floating around after a terrible flood and subsisting, waiting for rescue.
I last saw Lisa several years ago. I still send my yearly letters to her mother, so she hears of me regularly. I wish we were in better contact, but she has two kids and I understand she is very busy with them and her work.
my best friends growing up were a pair of guys named Jeff and John. We were in boyscouts together, we went camping together, our families got together for dinner, we did homework together, we did school plays together, we were in junior high band together ... everything. The three amigos. We got to college and mostly went our separate ways, though I still hear from Jeff every now and again.
My two best friends from college are the people I keep in touch with the most. Mike and Rob. All three of us are musicians, philosophers, and like sushi. Mike and I were roommates my junior year of college, and but Rob lived on our floor too. They were the guys with me through some of my hardest moments, and they were standing behind me when I married my beautiful wife Liz :) Of all of my friends, they are my dearest.
But I've felt the same way here in Australia. We've spent our time and funds trying to make ends meet and get the house furnished so we can actually have friends over for dinner (which we've finally done a couple times now), but it means we can't afford to go out and do stuff around the city. So I've been inside a lot lately with my computer doing web design for mimos (a blog and a website), and it gets old after a while. Getting out to go biking helps, and mimos on sundays and the occasional dinner with friends, but I do a lot alone. I'm thinking that has to change.
My best friend in 6th grade through middle school was Debbie. She was 1 grade behind me in school. We attended the same church and hung out so much together that we referred to eachother as "sister". I stayed many nights over at her house, and she many nights at mine. I don't remember exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way she became involved with a rougher crowd, and we went in different directions. I ran into her in Wegmans a while back and it was good to see her, but we live in different towns and just don't seem to have very much in common anymore.
Rachel, your friend Debbie doesn't live too far from me. I saw her up at the Apple Blossom Festival with her mother.
Not too far back I made a list of 13 childhood friends but never put it on the blog. For a while it seemed as though I had a new "best friend" every school year. Usually they moved away but even moving across town or to another neighborhood was sometimes enough to squlech a friendship. Mom didn't drive and little people can't go too far on their own.
When we were growing up our neighborhood was full of kids, and on top of that Mom babysat, so there was no lack of children to play with. Peggy and Ann lived up the street about four houses and we loved riding bikes, playing hopscotch, and playing house with our dolls. Back then we all rode bicycles with banana seats and sissy bars. The handlebars were deep too and if we were very talented, we could ride not only double, but triple, with no helmets! No wonder we were always coming home with scraped up knees and elbows.
From sixth through tenth grade my very best friend was Ruth. She spent so much time at our house that the new neighbors thought she was my sister. We spent every minute we could in each other's company. She went camping with us, we took long bike rides together, went Christmas shopping, jumped rope with the "new" neighbors, baked cookies and played yahtzee, attended church, went to the bowling alley on her parents league night... She stayed at my house nearly all summer until her parents finally said it was time to go home, than I went with her. Unfortunately we ended up going to different high schools and then came the boyfriends and other teenage callings and we kind of started losing touch. I missed her terribly too. It was really hard to let her go.
I guess life is a succession of best friends in someways. A couple of my very best friends have always been my sisters. I might not have admitted that when I was in junior high but we had lots of fun together and tons of great memories.
Yes, we do. I love you Marty.
Why thank you, Mart. I feel honored to be considered a best friend of your...and I'd really have to say the same thing for you guys.
Jamie and I have tried to get this concept across to our children. That the friends they have now...most will not be there years from now...but they will always have each other. Therefore they chould try to treat one another like friends now.
Yes, we tried to teach our kids that too but they never seem to understand until they're mostly grown up and their friends start disappearing
One of my favorite memories is playing in "the woods" after school. Back then it seemed as if the whole neighborhood was there. I hardly recall what we did, aside from run around on the trails and walk on fallen trees, but it was a grand adventure, none the less.
Build forts, look for poliwogs, catch frogs, climb trees, carve initials in trees, ride bikes, hide, pick flowers, pretend to fish, play Lewis and Clark,....
... catch snakes! Oh yeah, and we jumped the creek, "fished" for leaves with sticks, and raced our bikes down the trails.
pretend to go hunting... search for arrow heads. I'd love to do all these things but no one will do them with me!
Time to go to Rylan's house, Al!
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