At 58 years of age, I am contemplating many aspects of life that had been taken for granted way back on the timeline. As a kid, I lived in a neighborhood in which kids hung out in groups, as we rode bikes, swam, played on swingsets and climbed monkey bars. I think of them now as ‘activity’ friends….people to do stuff with. Not particularly deep pondering of life, the Universe and everything went on between us. On the rare occasions when I would raise topics that were out of the box, I was looked at like a bug under a microscope. I was definitely a quicky kid. Fortunately, in my teens, I had some in my life with whom I could do deeper into the imponderables without a bunch of eye rolling from whoever was on the listening end. How sad I feel for those who keep relationships and conversation on a surface level. I would miss so much if I did that with the people in my life. Such richness in those kinds of 2 a.m. conversations.

They were the staples in my relationships with college friends who came into my life in 1979 when I walked through the door of Together, Inc. which was a crisis intervention center, youth center and hotline staffed by students at Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) in Glassboro, NJ. I felt like I had met my tribe. In the midst of these idealistic hippie healers, creative counselors and daring dreamers, I was at home. I describe the nature of our bonds in this way, “We went to school together, worked together. played together and in various and sundry combinations slept together…”  Many overlapping relationships over the years.  This past weekend, we celebrated the 60th birthday of one of our circle. A surprise party was planned by her daughters  Any and Ashley and since it was on Halloween weekend, we were encouraged to wear costumes. She was lured to the VFW building by friends by being told it was an event that was indeed for Halloween and she was (as were a group of them) dressed as a Minion from the Despicable Me movies. I missed the surprise part, but was delighed to see the room filled with colorful folks who were laughing, chatting, listening to music and eating yummy food and decadent treats.

I was greeted with bunches of hugs from my friends and then some catch up conversations on our lives. Although we are all connected via the marvels of modern technology, it was wonderful to be sitting face to face. We know that time and distance has no bearing on our connection. We are forever in each other’s hearts.

A more recent friend name Rhian Lockard queried on Facebook on the subject of friendship:

“Can we talk about friendship for a second? I feel like friendship as an adult is very strange. Do you as an adult have super close friends who you are your truest self with; flaws and all? Do you mostly have friends who you put on a positive face with and stick to surface topics with? Do you have drama as an adult and do you think it’s worth it to dig through that drama to maintain friendships or do you prefer to cut and move on?”