I've had many friends throughout my life. Of course, my idea of what a friend is has changed many times over the years. I guess that's normal as we get older and wiser. When I was a child, I thought my best friend then would always be my best friend. I didn't know any better. Who am I kidding, even as a young adult, after having quite a few "best friends" I thought the one I had at that point in time was going to be it until I got old and gray. This is the part of me that is forever optimistic and always seeing the good in people. At 42 I still hold on to that shit (even though I call it shit) and believe it always works out the way it is supposed to (which is supposed to be good) and people, deep down, will do the right thing. Shit, right? Yeah, well, I didn't say it was accurate, I just said I still hang on to it. 
Anyway....I read something once early on - a poem or some such thing. I just looked it up (gotta love the Internet) - it was the Reason, Season and Lifetime friend poem and it said people either come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Some of it is hokey but some of it made a whole lot of sense to me. It made me understand why friends come and go. Or maybe it just gave me a reason to believe why they went. Because sometimes I just didn't understand. I started to think my expectations were too high. Or maybe there was something wrong with me. Or maybe I didn't deserve friends who stayed. 
I like to think that people do come into your life for a reason and you may not know what that is until quite some time down the road because it hurts when they go, but eventually, you do figure it out. Some of my friends now are text friends. Some are shopping friends. Some are hang out and have a beer friends. And some.... very few.... would drive an hour, at three in the morning to come and pick me up if I called them because I needed a ride. Those people.... they are my friends. If you're lucky, you get a few of those in your life and you hang on to them. I've never been one of those people, though, who had a friend like that since kindergarten or grammar school or even high school. I always envied people who had that and wished I did. 
What I do have is one friend who I've known since 1988. He is, by far, the person I've known the longest and am still extremely close with. He is and always has been, my soul mate. He knows me inside and out. He can look at me and know what I'm thinking. I hardly see him anymore but I bet he can still finish my sentences. He understands me and who I really am and what makes me tic. He understood me, I think, before I even did. And the really cool part? He accepts me for exactly who I am - faults and all (and I have a lot)! 
SO.... why am I not with him you might be wondering? Good question (my first band). We'd probably kill each other. I love him. I need him. We just can't be with each other. I tried. I really did. I dated him.... slept with him, even. Several times. I tried everything I could think of to MAKE myself feel that way about him. But you know what 'they' say? You can't make the heart love somebody. I can tell you exactly how true that statement is because I tried so very hard. I knew if I married that man, he would make me happy for the rest of my life or do whatever was in his power to try. But I didn't. I couldn't. It wasn't fair. So 23 years later he's miserable and I'm alone.I've dated all the wrong men. Men who didn't care about me. One who mentally, emotionally and physically abused me. One who verbally belittled me every chance he got. One who only cared about his work. Oh, there were many. They weren't all bad. They just didn't work out for one reason or another. But there was always him. My friend. The one who knew the real me. The one no one else knew or tried to know. Not even my husbands. And you know what's funny? After two failed marriages and many relationships, the one thing I've come to realize is that at the end of the day, I want someone I can call my best friend. The one who I know, no matter what.... in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, through richer or poorer - loves me. The real me. Not the picture of somebody he was hoping I might be. I want a friend.
I wonder if I'll ever find that. I know I'll keep looking. Or not looking (isn't that when it finds you?) The one thing I know for sure is that I will always have my dear friend. And that, I cherish.
