thirty days with a grateful heart - day five

day five - the differences between us

When I was five, Katie Riley became my very first best friend.  We had a lot in common, Katie and me, we were both in kindergarten, we both liked Shawn Cassidy, and we both thought our younger siblings were kind of annoying.  At five, I'm fairly certain that this is precisely what brings girls together in the first place.  Well, that and, probably even more importantly, the fact that she just happened to live two doors down and that our parents liked to hang out together.

Later on, the same was true for some of my future best friends.  We tended to participate in the same sports, we had similar interests, similar beliefs.  We were in the same class, lived on the same street, rode the same bus, liked the same movies, hung out with the same crowd.  The friendships were easy, perhaps a bit shallow, but much the norm for that time in our lives.

For awhile, when I was a new mom, my friendships revolved around the littles, and were with women that had children, too.  We could relate to each other, we shared the same burdens.  There was common ground, common needs, and a sense of always being in the same, sleep-deprived, boat. 

As I have gotten older, however, as my interests have waxed and waned, as my life has evolved and my littles have grown, so too have my friendships evolved.  No longer are my friendships built solely on interest or proximity.  In fact, I have very few friends that live close and even fewer that enjoy the same activities that I enjoy. 

No, more often than not I am finding that now it is actually our differences that bring my friends and I together.  As I have gotten older, as I've become more and more comfortable in my own individuality, my willingness to learn from and share with another has been what has attracted me to these new friendships.  These friendships make life interesting.  They open new worlds to me.   They challenge me often, requiring me to be present, to use my voice, to open my heart.

Sometimes we do like some of the same things - OneRepublic or a head-clearing long run through the trails, a good glass of Pinot or that gotta-have-it stacked black pump.  But, as my mind wanders through those few, precious women that I cherish and have dared to term bff, more often than not, I realize they are (gratefully!) as different from me as, say, water and oil... black and white...

diet coke and tea.