The Many Flavors of Friendship

The Man claims that a certain social networking site is evil, so he won't join. The Boy and I each have an account and we have fun reconnecting with friends, chatting, etc. There are two specific reasons I use the site, one is catching up with old friends from high school, college, the Navy days, etc. and the other is playing a certain dice game. I spend about an hour a day on the site, but some days I just sign in, check status updates and sign off, depending on how busy my 'real life' is that day.

Last night, I signed on and there was a friend request. I clicked on it and it was from my bff from elementary school! I had searched for her on the site, but didn't know her married name, so I couldn't find her. She has the same eyes and smile and I'm confident in saying that I'd know her anywhere! Would I have ever 'seen' her again if not for this site? Who knows! But I'm so happy she found me! She came to school for the first time in 4th grade. On the first day of school, I looked over at her and asked if she wanted to be locker mates....and the rest is history. She only stayed for 4th and 5th grade, but we were besties while she lived there. She even came to visit me in VaBeach after we both got married, but I hadn't heard from her since then...until last night! :)

I have caught up with high school friends, college friends, friends from when The Man was in the Navy that have been scattered near and far, family, and local people who are in my life right now. The most controversial? My online friends who I've known and cherished for 10 years now. (If you want to call them 'controversial! I just call them friends!)

I have a core group of friends that I met online and some of them even "in real life" to whom I'm very close. When I moved to Farm Country, I was a stay at home mom. I volunteered at The Boy's school, but I was having a very hard time meeting people. So, I turned to AOL and started chatting about what was for dinner on there. It has morphed through the years and now my core group of friends and I have our own private message board online. It's like sitting with a cup of coffee and chatting with all of your best friends at once. We talk about everything...cry together, rejoice together, cheer for one another, are proud of our children's accomplishments as if they were our own, etc.

Before you start to feel sorry for me by saying, "oh the poor thing only has 'imaginary friends'", let me emphasize that these people are real and I do have friends in this town. Plus, the person I've been friends with the longest, besides The Man, lives about 90 minutes away. We don't see one another very often, but when we get together it's like we've never been apart. We met when our guys were in boot camp and we became pen pals for support and then became one another's life support during the long deployments. Our husbands are best friends, our boys are friends, so that makes it so nice when we all get together. We talk on the phone on occasion and she's the reason I started this blog. :)

And, let's talk about The Man, shall we? I can't remember a time when I didn't know him. Our families attended the same church when we were babies, so we met in the church nursery. We were in the same homeroom from third through sixth grade and then remained friends all through junior high and high school. We didn't start dating until he joined the Navy and I went to WVU. Talk about doing everything the hard way! We had a long distance relationship and probably saw one another about 30ish days out of the year we dated. My dad even took our family on a mini vacation to see him when The Man was stationed in Portsmouth because the ship was in dry dock. What a dad, right?

I have friends that I've met through the Navy scattered all over the country and it's so nice to catch up on one another's lives. The friends I've met because of the Navy became my family. It's difficult to explain the bond we had and I haven't experienced anything like it since. You learn to depend on one another when husbands are deployed....and suddenly things like the water valve to the toilet has been chewed by the dog from hell and your bathroom becomes flooded into the kitchen below, so you call your friend, who also is a Navy wife whose husband is deployed, screaming, and she tells you that while she feels bad for you, she isn't a plumber so call the maintenance man; and then you have to call your instructor and tell her why you can't come to class that day... or the dog from hell locks you out of your own home, while you're outside talking to a Navy wife and her husband who are visiting, so that friend's husband has to remove the sliding glass door to let you back into your own home, and then you suddenly feel very vulnerable because anyone can break in just by removing the sliding glass door.... or your car gets stolen right from in front of your townhouse and you have to go to court and miss work just to see some juvenile delinquents get a slap on the wrist, so you call a friend for comfort.....not that I'd know anything about any of these things....just making general conversation....ok....these things did happen to me during different deployments.

I've said this before...people and situations mold us into the people who we have become. My life is richly blessed because of my friends. (But, I could have survived my life without the dog from hell!)