I spent some time with one of my oldest friends last week. Well, she’s not the oldest—that honor goes to an 80-year-old lady who makes me laugh like a jackass—but she’s been my friend since high school, so that’d be… let’s see… 32 years.
We sat up giggling half the night, having what my husband calls a “hen party.”
We’ve known each other longer than we haven’t. We’ve been friends longer than her kids are old. Longer than either of us have lived in one place. Longer than our marriages combined.
Our friendship is older than memory, older than regret, older than the ancient jar of Dippity-Do I’ve obsessively packed and moved from house to house for many years. (What can I say? Dippity-Do is hard to find.)
As someone who doesn’t make friends easily (it’s a talent I lack, like the inability to dance or juggle), I treasure the ones I have.
This old friend knows me from the inside out. She keeps me accountable. She doesn’t judge. She’s also hilarious after the second glass of wine.
She knows me, and I know her. We don’t even have to talk to understand each other.
For example…
I know exactly what she’s going to order at Subway.
She knows I didn’t like her last haircut, although I didn’t say a word. I know she thinks I should straighten my frizzy hair, but she’s given up suggesting it.
She knows I’d rather sit on the floor than the sofa. She knew I needed bifocals before I did.
I know that when she stays at my house, before she leaves she’ll do my laundry, scour the shower, wash dishes and water my flowers. If I don’t catch her in time, she’ll also run the vacuum, bake brownies and snake the kitchen drain.
She knows how much I grieved when she moved to California. I know why she went, and why she returned a year later.
I know that red wine gives her a headache the next day.
I know she knows I’m sad that we no longer worship together: She’s become a hands-in-the-air, devil-rebuking evangelical Christian, while I remain a Rite I thee-and-thou Episcopalian. But, since we pray to the same God, we’ve worked through it.
She knows I’ve never quite mastered the task of turning off my electric toothbrush, which is why there are flecks of Crest all over the bathroom wallpaper.
I know she makes her own Christmas ornaments with gold ribbon, seashells and a hot- glue gun.
I know she’s not afraid of death, and doesn’t understand why I am.
I know when she puts on makeup, she does her lips last. I know she’s read everything Nicholas Sparks ever wrote.
She knows I’m afraid of balloons and frogs. I know she worries about how her sons will remember her. I know she prefers hazelnut creamer in her coffee. She knows I don’t drink coffee.
I know she makes an incredible orzo salad. She knows I haven’t turned on my stove in two months.
I know when I die she’ll be there, even if she has to drive all night or hijack a plane. She knows I’ll ask her to bring boiled peanuts.
Julie R. Smith, whose friends make her a better person, can be reached at widdleswife@aol.com.