Girlfriends

Some people go to priests, others to poetry, I to my friends. – Virginia Woolf
This one is for the ladies:
A little over a year ago, I was preparing for the upcoming company Christmas party. Not having a significant other at the time, and needing a date, my friend offered up her boyfriend to be my date for the night as she was probably going to have to work that night and he would just be bored with nothing to do. Because, that's what all boyfriend's do - they sit at home, bored, patiently pining away for their missing girlfriends. Ahem. Anyway, back at work, I was talking to a fellow coworker about my dateless dilemma and mentioned the borrowed boyfriend scenario as an option. My female colleague, engaged at the time, looked at me horrified and said, "What? You mean your friend would let her boyfriend come to the party without her?" "I would never trust any of my friend's to go anywhere with my fiancee." This is where I dispensed what I consider some of my most sage womanly advice. I looked straight at her and said matter-of-factly, "Honey, if you can't trust your friends to be alone with your man, then you need to find better friends." Now, a lot can be said about the boyfriend/spouse/significant other not being trusted in this situation, but this isn't a post about cheating boyfriends. This is a post about loyal friends. I won't say I couldn't have made it this far without my friends, too cliche', but I will say, what a terribly, dismal image that conjures.  I don't want to think of a life without these terrific women in it. These are women, who, when I left my husband, showed up at my house in pickup trucks on Labor Day after a long weekend of partying on the river, ready to do some heavy lifting. Women, who, when I found myself strapped for cash for a trip to New Orleans a couple of years back, offered to cover my portion of the hotel room, because according to them, "they preferred my company over my monetary contribution". The same group of women who have laughed with me, cried with me, cheered for my successes, chided me for my poor decisions when I needed to hear it, and have peed on more backroads with me than I could ever count. They are smart, talented, beautiful, hard working ladies and while I may could imagine a life without them, I damn sure wouldn't want to. Friendships change over time, and in ten years, your best friends may be completely different from who they are now. But it is important at any stage of your life to know who they really are. Life is just so much better with good girlfriends; friends that love you, that are there to help when you need it, friends that you can trust, without any doubts, to be alone with your boyfriend while you are stuck at work.