I will be celebrating my
BFF’s birthday Saturday. We go back a long way, more than half a century, to a
time when two four-year-olds, one with dimples and dark curls and one with
stick-straight blonde hair and a too-wide mouth, shared a consuming desire to
play tambourine in the kindergarten rhythm band. “Cool” wasn’t in our
vocabularies yet, but we knew the six five-year-old girls who played the
tambourines were the ones who got the attention and the praise. They were who
we wanted to be. We learned a lot of things that year—how to tell right from
left, how to print our names, and how to please the teacher. The latter skill
helped us move from lowly rhythm-stick players to the coveted tambourine
positions the next year. But the most important thing we learned was that best
friends were for sharing books, telling stories, giggling over boys, and
keeping secrets. 
All these years later, after decades of sharing triumphs and trip-ups,
births, and deaths, a lifetime of laughter and more tears that we could have
dreamed of at four, we still understand the role of best friend. We are very
different women who have led very different lives. We disagree about religion,
politics, hairstyles, music, and who Lynn H. really liked best in second grade. But we never run out of things to talk about, we can finish each other’s
sentences, and we know with absolute certainty that the place we hold in one
another’s heart, like the place we hold in one another’s history, is large and sure.
The summer of 2010, I went to a reunion. Not a class
reunion--this one was much smaller. It was a reunion of a small group with whom
I shared a big part of my life from elementary school through high school. Most
of us attended the same church and our parents were friends. We grew up feeling
at home in one another’s houses, being disciplined and comforted by one another’s
parents, sharing tea parties and softball, football games and barefoot dancing
at the swimming pool, hugs and heartbreaks. After high school, we kept in touch,
although more and more sporadically as our lives moved in different directions.
But occasional lunches when everyone was in town,
Christmas letters, and church homecomings kept us part of one another’s lives.
That summer gathering was golden, hours and hours of talking and laughing and
looking at photographs of the girls we were and the women we had become.
Husbands and SOs joined in. There were no awkward silences or uncomfortable
moments, just old friends enjoying one another. Of the five married couples in
the group, three got together during those halcyon days and still have the kind
of relationship that had them exchanging glances across the room and dancing in
the moonlight. How wonderful to be reminded that HEAs do happen in real life
too. Another, who was widowed, had just returned from her honeymoon, a
motorcycle trip to Las Vegas. I’m going to use her in a book one day.
College, grad school, teaching years—at every stage
of my life there have been women friends who added color and meaning to my
life. Some of my closest friends now are women whom I’ve never met
face-to-face, but with whom I exchange emails, share dreams, and rant and rave
about the disasters and delights of our reading, our writing, and our lives.
Friends not only make us happier; they also make us
healthier. Studies have shown that, for women, talk and touch release the hormone
oxytocin (the same hormone that initiates labor in pregnant women). Oxytocin reduces stresss, calming both mind and
body. Hugs and chats really are good for you. Spending time with our girlfriends also fosters the release of serotonin,
a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general
feeling of well being. A Dove study suggested that women friends also increase our self-esteem. Among the women in the study, 75 percent felt prettier because of other women. Yet another study reported that the more friends a woman
has, the less likely she is to develop physical impairments as she ages. Some
experts suggest that women who lack these close friendships are placing
themselves at a risk for health problems equal to that of smoking.
In real life and in online communication, I spend a
lot of time laughing with my friends. For me, shared laughter is an essential
part of intimacy. I can’t imagine a close relationship that didn’t include
laughter. Did you know that the benefits of laughter are similar to the
benefits of exercise? One study found that over the course of a year, laughter
increased levels of good HDL cholesterol by 26 percent and decreased C-reactive
proteins, a measure of inflammation linked to both heart disease and diabetes
risk by 66 percent. And while some people claim that the internet is a threat
to friendship, research indicates that, especially for women, online
friendships after a year become comparable in quality to real-life friendships.
Self-disclosure rather than face time seems to be the key to quality
friendships.
So if you’re feeling good, have a healthy
self-esteem, and are looking forward to more happy years, take time to say
thanks to your girlfriends. You owe some of that health and happiness to them.
Friends,
I will remember you,
think
of you, pray for you,
and when another day is through,
I'll still be friends with you.
--John
Denver
How
important do you consider friends in your life? What do you think are the most
essential qualities of friendship?
