Friend Dictionary

A woman has several different types of friends...I am going to attempt to describe them each by category.

KIDS

Childhood Best Friends-These are the friends that you grew up with (duh) the ones you weren't allowed to play with because you were grounded...remember those days?? I had two childhood BFF's and because I have not asked their permission I can only call them "J the girl" and "R the boy" If either one of them read this, they will know who they are. I found both of them on FB and we can talk like we are still BFF's. These friends are very important building blocks of your life. They are the ones who you remember as your kids grow up...you realize how incredibly adventurous you were or how wimpy you were!

Parents Friends Kids-Ahhh, the forced playdates with those kids who you didn't know at ALL and usually were too old for you to play with or too young. The ones who your parents yelled at you to clean your room for but then they immediately destroyed and then left before cleaning up. I was lucky in this area of friends, my parents, as far as I can remember, didn't have many friends when I was growing up or maybe they were too embarrassed by my brother and I to ever bring them around, who knows? My "PFK's were pretty awesome and we are still friends today. It is neat to see them grow up and have their own kids. Thanks for great memories "D", "K" & "G"! Remember Mouse Darts or getting beat by my brother in Hardball 63-0? Hahaha!! Good times, good times!

Neighbors Kids/School Friends-These were both friends and enemies...usually. The boy you like, the girl you hate, your boy best friend, your girl best friend and that other kid, could be a girl or boy, that no one really understood why they hung out with. Good times could be had by all if you all played together or one at a time...it usually didn't work if only 3 or 4 were there. You all gathered together to play football or all went to one of the houses and ate them out of house and home...this tended to be on a rotation schedule. Over time all the neighbor/school friends would move away one by one and never be heard of again. Wonder what ever happened to....???

ADULT

Co-Workers-These are usually our first experiences with adult friends. They are a good mix of people...sort of like neighbors....there is usually that one co-worker that you would compare schedules with hoping to be working with either because they are cool to work with and talk to or they were REALLY cute! Either way the co-worker friend doesn't usually go beyond the dates of employment...don't get me wrong SOMEtimes they do... I even married someone who used to be a co worker...a lot of us probably have.

Husbands Friends Wives-This is not usually a big group of friends...I think this is based on the fact that when men go out they are going to do something us women don't like...golf, poker, pool or something of the sort and we don't go. I have some of these friends and they are pretty great. Those are the summer BBQ friends where the guys branch of with their beer and horseshoes, the kids are in the pool or playing kick ball and the wives are all sitting at the table talking about the previously mentioned people (the husbands and the kids).

Kids Friends Parents-This is the opposite of the Parents Friends Kids and not to be confused. These are the friendships that grow from allowing our children to to go to school and pick THEIR Childhood and Neighbor friends. I have mostly lucked out in this department as well. Lexie has some great friends and their parents are great too! These friendships can grow and become quite significant, especially if the kids find that One BEST friend early in life.

One BEST Friend-Not much of an explanation needed here. He or she is ALWAYS there for you...no matter what! There has probaly been at least one or two moments of a fight but nothing they couldn't get through after a week or two. They are probably the Godmother/father to each other's children. This friend could have come from any of the other categories. Mine came from the Neighbor/School category. "JK" is amazing...the funny thing about us is that we took separate paths in life but always stuck together...she got the academic scholarship and got herself a CAREER and I stopped school and worked a JOB and had babies.

Facebook-Facebook friends are a total blend of all the categories mentioned. Some people we friend just to see how they turned out, other we genuinely want to reconnect with and others are just filler. I am so grateful for FB because I moved cross country and have been able to re-connect with my childhood friends and old Neighbor/School Friends...actually the one person not on FB is my One BEST Friend...go figure.

We all have a mixture of these friends in our lives and I, like probably most of you, associate some of them to your successes and some to your failures. We all have at least one friend that we would love to find, but of course, they are not on Facebook. Do our friends define us, keep us grounded, rile us up to do some outrageous things? I think the answer is: Yes, Yes, and Yes if you have a well rounded group of people surrounding you. I am grateful for all the friends that are in my life right now, now matter how often I see them.