Friends for Life

Back in February my honey and I went to a Fat Tuesday Fundraiser with our friends from St Mary.

We asked our daughter to take our picture before we left because, we rarely get all gussied up to go out.  Don't mock my tights and boots,  it was February and I get cold easily!  Besides as you'll see in a later picture, I think it was a good omen.

The night was a blast, with lots of good food, dancing, chatting and catching up with those friends we love but rarely have the time to see anymore now that our kids have grown up and we're not planing overnighters or standing in the yellow box to  pick our kids up from school.

Friends like these here.  We first came together because our kids went to the same school and we all attended the same church.  Now, even though our kids have all moved on to different schools and different phases of their lives, once in a while we're lucky and we get to hang out together.  Look at them!  They're not only each and every one,  stellar human beings but,  I trust the one on the far left so much, I let him deliver one of my grandchildren!  The woman in the black dress has the same love for farm animals that I do.  You'd a thought we invented chickens!  The guy in the middle with the big smile, he's always gonna make you laugh and he gets your husband out of the house to relax and play poker now and again too.  However, now that I think about it, you wouldn't want to let him deliver your baby.  He's married to the chicken lady whose smile is never, ever not present on her face. She makes you feel good just by shining all her positive energy towards you with that 1000 kilowatt smile.  The lovely lady on the far right, she's a dear too, married to the guy on the far left and combined, our kids have gone to school together for the past 16 years.  Two of them are still going to the same University as we speak.  

You may think we're old but, we can keep up with the best of them.  It's at least 9:00 PM and we're still takin pictures of ourselves.  You learn how to do that when you have teenagers.  They think they're the only ones who know how to wield the camera or the cell phone to capture and email their photos all over FaceBook and the internet.

No way man, we can do it too!

As you go through life and the seasons of it change, you must change with them.  There is a time when your friends are your pals from school, your peers.  You usually have your girlies to whom you tell all your secrets and you're sure they'll be there for you always.  You start dating and you may even think you fall in love a time or two. You may meet friends in college whom you'll still know a century later.  One day you might fall in love for real and you'll marry and build a family of your own.  Some friends come with you and some stay behind.  That's the way it's supposed to be.  Every friend, every person you experience is an important part of the seasons of your life.

Your kids go off to school and you make friends with the parents of their pals and with the people you work with.  You may be part of a church community and lasting friendships are made there too.  Soon you make friends with your spouses friends and co-workers, business associates.  Your kids start growing up and as you are chasing them around town trying to keep up with their antics, you make new friends who are doing the same thing.  There are those who start writing a blog and surprise!  Lots of new friends in cyberspace become friends for real.

Some people are in our lives for a moment in time and some for a lifetime.  Some friends are with you through thick and thin and some you don't see for 10 years at a time but when you do it seems as though it were yesterday as all your memories come flooding back.  They are all important and they all leave an impression.  They, along with the experiences you have with them help to shape your life.

But if you're lucky. Really, really, lucky, you have one friend whom you love more than all the rest.  He loves you back and he sticks with you through thick and thin, day in and day out.  He sticks with you even when you don't deserve it.  He is the one who stands by you,  lifts you up when you're down and keeps you grounded when you get too crazy.  He sees you at your best and at your worst and he loves you the same either way.  If you're lucky he still makes your heart soar after he's been there and seen it all for 25 years by your side.

These two were celebrating Mardi Gras too.  They danced the night away long after some of us had gone home to bed.  They've been there at that St Mary Fundraiser for as long as I can remember, and they always leave a sweet and lasting impression.  And that little omen I talked about before with the tights.  I just have to get mine a wee more sparkly!

So today,  I want to wish my beloved a Happy 25th Wedding Anniversary.  You're  my very best, my most beloved and dearest  friend. We've raised five kids together who are all amazing in their own way.  I won't write about them now because it's not their turn.  I hope 25 years from now we look just like this couple and we'll still be 'cuttin' a rug', after all these years.

Happy Anniversary My Sweetie.  Loved you then, but love you more now, and will love you more still.

Blessings,

Me xoxoxo