What BFF Means to Me
Yesterday I mentioned my high school BFF. You know, Best Friend Forever? I also included that all those notes signed by one or the other of us as “BFF” was all a lie. We have gone our separate ways. In fact, almost immediately after high school, we lost touch. (After she was a bridesmaid in my wedding. No connection.) (I think.)
That phrase “Best Friend” has always meant a lot to me. I’d like to give some profound reason why, but the truth is likely because grammar matters to me more than it should. (I realize you may not be able to tell while reading these articles!) If you say someone is your BEST FRIEND, then that should be the truth.
Ooohh, another self-realization right before your eyes. It isn’t just grammar. It is the TRUTH. Even though I sometimes lie, people not being accurate, not telling the truth, makes me crazy with a capital C. I really had two BFF’s in high school, but unfortunately for one of them, she had to be second tier. It wouldn’t be right to call two people your “best friend.” Best is the best, the one at the top of the list. The ONE at the top of the list. (Tomorrow I may tell you the story of the time I called someone out for that. It did not end well for me.)
My kids have heard me moan and complain their entire lives when they would say they had lots of best friends. I should be applauding that! I should be encouraging it. Instead, I would give a lesson in grammar and honesty. “You can’t really have more than one best friend.” Now, when my oldest focuses his entire attention on one person, I’m asking, “Why do you find it difficult to be friends with lots of people at once?” Oops. There is another topic from the Mom Column in therapy. That column is several pages long.
Anytime I heard parents refer to their children as “friends,” my kids would hear me say, “I’m not your friend. I’m your mother.” Yikes! Now, they say it back to me. They are growing up. There are some days I’d like to be at least friendly with them. They remind me, “You aren’t our friend. You are our mother.” Of course, they are right. Job done.
I’ve never considered Hubby my BFF either. He is my husband and the person I most trust in the entire universe. But, I don’t call him my best friend. I have a group of friends that I refer to as “dear friends” because that feels special to me. When I say “dear,” I sincerely mean that these particular people are what some folks call “chosen family.” They are truly dear to me.
I called them “chosen family” for a while until my own children said, “Thanks a lot! I guess you CHOOSE them. You are just STUCK with us!” Then, I thought what that must sound like to the family I was born into. I still choose them too. I choose them all. How lucky am I?
I do have a BFF. She and I had lunch yesterday. I warned her that she would be showing up soon. (Hey BFF! Thanks for reading!) When I met her, I thought she was insane. She was not someone I would choose as my BFF. She chose me, I think. In fact, she JUST told me in a text “I fell in love. It took you a while to catch up.”
If you had told me in 1998 when we met at an “eighties party” at a mutual friend’s house that we would still be friends “23 freaking years” later (as she put it when I asked her to confirm the date), I would have laughed so hard you would have worried about me.
I was too cool to need a BFF, especially one of the female persuasion. (Another story I’ll share another day.) I had plenty of friends, Hubby, and an insane schedule. She was loud, country as hell, and called me every day after she found my phone number. There was actually a moment in the first year or so of our relationship that I said to her, “I don’t talk to my mother every day! I’m not going to talk to YOU every day.” That was the truth. It is still the truth in fact.
Then, somehow, years later I found myself playing the role of her mother to check her into university housing as she answered a call to ministry and started the required education to go with it. Still, I didn’t believe in forever when it came to friends.
Friends are friends forever if the Lord’s the Lord of them.
That was a popular Christian song by Michael W. Smith published the year before I met BFF. I found it to be absolute hogwash. One day I said so and broke her heart.
BFF LOVED JESUS more than any country girl had ever loved Jesus. And, she loved me too. She was certain that we would be friends until the day one of us dies. I was not convinced. In fact, that is another conversation we had pretty early on.
“BFF, I said,” though I’m sure I would not yet use that term, “nothing lasts forever. Not even with the Lord!” I was in my twenties. I didn’t know yet that history matters. I didn’t know yet that there are some friends who just keep being friends no matter what happens. She would sing at the top of her lungs anyway, “Friends are friends forever if the Lord’s the Lord of them,” and I would roll my eyes and say, “Just be prepared.”
As hard as it is for me to understand and make any sense of it at all, if I needed somebody to wipe my butt because I couldn’t do it for myself and Hubby wasn’t able to be there (He best be dead if he isn’t there!), then BFF would be the person I asked to help. I know that she would do it. She would sing while she did. And, I am lucky enough to know that if she couldn’t be there, there are others I could call on who would come and wipe my butt for me.
Friends really are friends forever if the Lord’s the Lord of them.
