ThrowBack Thursday: The Girlfriend Edition

I had a dream about one of my girlfriends last night. She's going through a tough time right now, and in my dream she and I were in Chicago, laughing, dancing, never happier. We've have been to Chicago together before, many moons ago in another life, where we tried like hell to go out dancing but only made it as far as a subway station, her in high leather boots and me in a leopard tank.  Maybe this dream was an extension of that: that time's carefreeness mixed with today's girls women, her still rocking tall boots and me still obsessed with leopard. Or maybe it was simply an indication that everything is going to be ok, and she will be smiling again soon.

That dream has stayed with me all day. I've spent a good portion of the morning reminiscing about the girls in my life and how much they mean to me. Girls who I have known for decades, who have shaped me, who have helped build my past, and who understand and love me. 

I instantly get wary around girls who claim to not like other girls; who say they prefer a man's company to a female's. I don't doubt them, and I don't discount their feelings, but I don't share in their belief that girls are inherently backstabbing drama-prone bitches, either.   You get what you give, girlfriend.

And I learned early on to give.  There was a time when my insecure, starving-for-attention teenaged-self kissed a boy that a very dear friend of mine liked. More than liked- he made up a good portion of her life at that time. I never had feelings for him and I knew she did, but somehow those things didn't matter when he and I had a dance that led to a kiss which resulted in a broken friendship that lasted for many many years. I never saw the boy again but I missed that girl every day; I was overjoyed when she and I reconciled so many years later.

I've made new girlfriends in my adult years, but these old friendships are the ones I come back to time and time again. These are the friendships I know without a doubt will always be in my life, whether we're able to talk every day or only on the holidays, whether we have dinner once month or only see each other once a year.  

I found with new friendships, that the trust just isn't there, and we don't have the time, or energy, or desire to put in that work. So when the drama comes, as it always does in one form or another, there is nothing substantial there to help us weather the storm, and we bail. It becomes like we never knew each other at all, and we're okay with that.

But I am not okay with losing these girls. I'd be losing a piece of myself, my past.  We've been through marriages and divorces, through births and deaths. We've kept each other out late at the bar and then got each other up early for work. We've dabbled in drugs, learned about sex, and dealt with our mothers, together.

I won't be the woman I am today without them, and I hope each and every one of my girls know how much I love them.