Friends are like the checker at my neighborhood grocery store. They see all my secrets revealed--the tampons, the beer, even the Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch-- and still manage to smile at me.
Like that checker, friends make me glad I showed up, even though they know everything about me. Yes, even that!
This is one reason I do not take my friendships lightly. It would be like the U.S. dismissing Iran's request for more plutonium as though it were child's play. No, I understand that things could blow at any time for a variety of reasons and I want to do whatever I can to avoid those disasters before they develop. Consider it my own form of unilateral disarmament in reverse. I overlook their warts in hopes that they might overlook mine.
Friends are my fuel that gets me going. Granted, methane is not the fuel I'd choose, but this is a matter I have been forced to overlook. If not actually ignore.
I can't believe how many funny people I know. It doesn't even matter which pool I happen to be swimming in--my "school" pool, my "neighbor" pool, my "childhood" pool. Each pool is in perpetual high tide because of all the laughter taking place within them. Every one of these people has seen me at my worst--or at the very least my "not-so-hot, thank you." And still they manage to laugh about it.
School friends witness my shortfalls daily--sometimes multiple times a day if they're bringing in their students to work with me. They see me forget things, lose my audience, get impatient with a 14-year-old (imagine!). And they quietly lift me up and reinforce me, filling in the gaps like a patient bricklayer who knows just what to do.
Neighbor friends see and hear my shortfalls each time I accidentally leave a window open at night. No doubt, they've heard me say rotten things to my children, seen me skitter across the kitchen in my skivvies and smelled me in the garbage cans that fester on the curb, the lids long gone. And still they wave as I pull in the drive each day.
Childhood friends live with this weird two-sided coin of me, sometimes confused by which Jane shows up when. Their memories know me as the cocky tomboy, always up for a stupid challenge. But these memories are muddied by the woman in front of them, someone who somehow managed to birth two people and stay married to another. None of it really adds up, but they hang in there with me anyway.
I love being a teacher. But I can imagine my life without teaching in it. I cannot, however, imagine life without friends in it. They are the salve to my wounds, the giggle in my jiggly puff. They are the reading glasses I reach for when I want to see things and feel things more clearly.
Like water, I imagine I couldn't live long without them.
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