Friendships are hard to maintain, especially long distance ones, which is why Neal and I were greatly blessed to have my best friend (and the one who married us!) come to visit us this weekend. Our first real visitor in our new home!
Misty is my longest-term friend, going on waaaay too many years now. (Since 8th grade. Almost 14 years…Egads! I’m old!) As all friends, we’ve had our ups and downs, times we didn’t talk and times we talked too much, periods of anger and of elation, sharing and supporting or feeling alone. It’s amazing to see how different we are as people and to wonder (as even the two of us have done) how we have remained friends so long. And then we realize how similar we are at the same time–finishing sentences or saying the same thing at the same time, etc. Then…it’s easier to realize how this friendship has stood the test of time and distance.
We’ve had many people declare their intention to visit (and a few who didn’t even care to do that, to be honest) but few who have actually had the time or inclination to actually do it. I miss my friends and family and even a couple ex-coworkers that I fell into friendship with. I miss talking about random life events, past histories, and exchanging advice based on experience and, sometimes, pain. (That is the kind of wisdom that is hard to ignore.)
When she left, I felt a bit bad that we didn’t do more while she was here. We took her to Gooseberry Falls to share in the frozen beauty they have become (and something I had yet to see myself, not having been there after a freezing time) and just around the canal area so she could see an ore boat come in (something I also just recently got to see myself for the first time). We ate and talked and laughed and just caught up on what has happened (the little details that get lost between the lines in emails and phone calls).
As she was getting in her car, I hugged her and apologized that we didn’t do very much, instead staying up until 4AM Friday night talking and almost (but not quite) as late on Saturday night doing the same thing. She reminded me the greatest thing about good friends: “I didn’t come here to see the sites. I came here to see you,” she reminded me.
I needed the reminder that we were doing exactly what a friend visits for: visiting and just being together. The doing isn’t the point. It’s the being.
And that definitely was the greatest bit of the entire weekend.
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