Friends, Acquaintances and Reunions

 I've never had much of an inclination to go to my High School Reunions.  Having gone to an all-girls school, my husband wasn't "invited" to the first few,  and as the years past,  I realized there were very few people I would be interested in seeing.    I wasn't a "popular" girl in high school.  Back then people would say I was shy, definitely naive and only had a handful of real friends.   Or should I say just friends?   These girls who I spent most of my waking hours with,  have all disappeared from the face of the earth.    What I have found  is that the best friends I have, have been made later in life.

I was 29 when I met my Best friend.  I can call her my best friend after 38 years of always being there for me  She is probably a better friend to me than I am to her since I am pretty much of an air-head  and she has it more "together" than I, but there isn't anything I wouldn't do for her.

I was 66 when I met my Second Best Friend.  It is never too late to form close friendships!  I am blessed to have been this lucky.

Over the years I have had "work friends" but most of them evaporated once I was no longer working with them.  (like when I graduated from High School)    Funny how that happens.   Losing these "friends" was as much of a blow as losing my job.  What it taught me was that after 16 years at a job and walking away with one "friend" is that I've tried not to get too close to the people I work with now.  I now have work "acquaintances" (and a couple do call friend - I am a slow learner!).

Real friends aren't necessarily people you see all the time.  They are the people you share some kind of history with and are so comfortable with you that you can pick up where you left off whether it was yesterday or two years ago!    And that's what happened this weekend with friends I've know for 38 years!    I haven't seen them in at least a year, but we sat and caught up like it was yesterday!   Funny how we talked about all the good times we had and what was going on now.   That was a real Reunion.  People you really want to see and spend time with.

I would prefer a Palmetto Street Reunion - a Holy Innocents Reunion (although they did have one recently), a Bridesburg Reunion, a Boulevard Pools-Brookline Reunion....The "Kids" I grew up with.  A few of us have reconnected on Facebook which is nice, but it's not the same as actually seeing and talking and sharing old times!  But NOT my High School Reunion - there's only a hand-full of people I would like to reconnect with there.