Hot Flashes & Cool Topics Podcast

MY BEST FRIEND KAREN

We talk about life in midlife in more broad terms on our podcast.  We wanted more personal stories on our Blog.  The first Blog will be about my best friend Karen.  Best Friends are a gift that we should not take for granted and as we get older, I think we appreciate them all the more.  I would love to hear your comments after you read.  Name your best friend and how she or he has added to your life.

Colleen

BLOG 1: MY BEST FRIEND KAREN

I have a best friend and her name is Karen.  I’m not one of those people who needs a large group of friends or people around all the time and truthfully, just the thought of that gives me anxiety.  Karen is the extrovert to my introvert, the ying to my yang and we just get each other.  I know how rare that is and I want her to know how much I appreciate our friendship.

Flashback to 1999 in a small PTO meeting for a preschool, we both walked in with a toddler on our hips and an infant car seat cutting off the circulation on our arms.  We sat next to each other.  She immediately started organizing the meeting and with my control issues, I was interested in learning more.  Morning coffees and playdates turned into long sessions discussing the difficulties in surviving that “young children” stage of life and it became just a little easier.  Since then, we have walked this journey of life next to each other, sometimes her leading me and sometimes me dragging her.  I would not have wanted it any other way.

We have been through so many good times and some bad that it would be impossible to list almost 21 years of experiences but they remain in my heart and my mind.  We were next to each other at another PTO meeting when word of 9/11 hit and we rushed to find out more and get to our children.  Then there was the time she was sitting right next to me when I got the call my father had died and she hugged me and made me laugh when she asked if Starbucks was opened early.  The time when she went through a bad divorce and I was her support and sounding board and her emergency call when she was ready to enter the dating world.  There were our summer girl trips, from Orlando to California we never missed them.  These experiences bond people for life and I know that we would be there for each other in an instant if the other  needed.

Our kids are now grown and I have moved from Florida to Tennessee.  I have begged her to move with me but life doesn’t always work that way and the closest I have is her daughter at a college nearby.  The distance is hard sometimes and we don’t Facetime, I don’t really know why but it doesn’t feel right.  I have learned over the last two decades that friendships come and go, people outgrow each other, but not me and Karen.  There is a saying that goes friendships come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.  Karen is my lifetimer!

I hope you have your own Karen, just know you can’t have mine.  If you do have that best friend that lasts the test of time, be grateful, be silly and above all, be truthful when she asks how her butt looks in those jeans!

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