Nothing to envy

And baby makes three friends

My best friend from college is tall, naturally trim, smart, blonde, and gorgeous.  She has a wonderful husband who treats her like gold, a custom-built house with an infinity pool and hot tub on the beach in Florida overlooking a pier where their boat is suspended on a hydraulic lift.   They take vacations wherever they like and had a fantastic coffee machine built into their kitchen even though they aren’t big coffee drinkers.

It would be easy to be 

envious of her.  

She’s also sweet, and supportive, and one of the best friends I’ve ever had.  She buys thoughtful gifts for my son even though she has no children of her own, and we laugh about the similarities between potty training a toddler and a puppy.   

Our friendship has not diminished through time, distance, and baby. 

We’ve seen each other through some of our toughest times:  unhealthy relationships, college classes, and growing up.  We drifted apart for one summer and quickly regained our friendship; we have lived in different states for over 14 years and it’s just as if we saw each other yesterday with every conversation and every visit.

You see, when we met at age 18, my friend worked for every dime she had.  She paid her own way through college, working two jobs at a time.  She didn’t have time for frivolous pursuits or extracurricular activities like I did, as my parents paid for everything but my spending money.  We have been like sisters for so long; even our names are only one letter apart.

This is us, circa 1990

It was a mutual love of Bon Jovi and Motley Crue that brought us together and we spent our college years seeing every “hair band” concert we could find in the Cincinnati area.  When we wanted to see a concert, we figured out a way to get free tickets through radio stations or friends or I bought two and she drove her car, since I didn’t have one our freshman year.   Sharing so many experiences and living in close proximity for our college years has given us a rich tapestry of memories to recollect, and a base for our new memories as adults.

Seeing her now, living the life she deserves, makes me incredibly happy.  I love hearing about her care-free glamorous life, and she shares my joy watching my son grow up in photos.  It was at my first wedding that she met her now-husband, a former friend of my ex.  I was the lucky one who kept full custody of his friendship as well as hers in the divorce; he refused to stand for that kind of treatment.  Their loyalty swells my heart with love. 

Now that we are in our 40s, life has never been better for either of us.  There is nothing to envy as we have all we ever wanted, in different ways. 

As the brilliant Alex says on her blog Late Enough, "Families look different. Some have kids and some don’t. Some will and some won’t. I don’t want my friends to understand once they have kids. I want my friends to be my friends, and I’ll be theirs whether they have kids or not." 

I'm thankful to have her friendship, on completely different paths. 

Love,