Wednesday, May 2, 2012

She Reads My Mind: My Best Friends

I have three women that I consider to be the closest of the close, bestest of the best, friends. There is very little they don’t know about me (with a few exceptions and one being that I write in this space).

Cristina, I have known since the day she was born yet she’s always lived across the country. We don’t speak often enough and see each other even less but when we do, time melts away and so does everyone else, for that matter. We have a lifetime of history.

Maggie, my best friend from college and city roommate, is the single person who knows where I’ve hidden all my skeletons since age 18. She knows what I’ve done and where I’ve been and loves me. We lead very different lives and proximity isn’t on our side but she’s the one I call when I have a problem, need to talk things through or for a good smack up side the head when I’m due (and I gladly walk right into it, by the way). She’s God loving and uber rational.

Then there’s Susie.


(Expressing our love for sweets at a pastry shop in Positano, Italy)


She’s my “sister from another mister”. Friends call us “Frick and Frack”. We are constantly asked if we're sisters and once even twins. It makes us laugh because we don’t see it. I have the pleasure of seeing her, talking with her, or just quickly texting her every single day.

I have known her the shortest, just 16 years, and we both can tell you the exact moment we became friends. It was a glance, then our eyes met full on, and we rolled them at the very same time at something being said. We were the only two in a room full of people who “got it”. It was instant. 

Sue is more like me than anyone else on this planet. It’s almost scary and sometimes, it is, because she’s just as saucy. 

We have a crazy affect on each other even when we aren’t doing much at all. When one is a little out of control, the other is standing right there either actively participating in the shenanigans and most certainly egging them on but always protective. We thoroughly amuse each other and have more fun, laugh harder than with any other friend. Maybe I should ask her if she feel the same way?

We share a love of food, family, sweets, Stuart Weitzman and Jimmy Choo, sassy jeans, movies, fitness, travel (she’s my roommate for life on girls’ trips), spontaneous adventure and a million other things.

The one thing we do not share is a love of GOLF. And because I have a difficult time saying “No” to her, I’m now golfing every Tuesday morning. Help me now.

The biggest difference with Susie is that she can read my mind, or just about. She can look me square in the eyes, her green to my blue, tilt her head slightly and squint, looking right inside. And she’ll know.

When she started a recent conversation with “I don’t know what….”, then “You better…” then “Don’t you mess up my…”, and "I feel the same…” I know I’m in for a talking to so I have no choice but to listen to my "baby sister" because without me saying one word she knows what she knows.

How does she do that? Magic?

8 comments:

About Last Weekend said...

What a fantastic account of your friends. Loving the frick and fracks of your life. Friends are everything to me, because they make me feel like "me" not Mum or the other naggy wife person.

Arnebya said...

There is nothing like those few friends who get you. I have a handful, one I don't talk to often enough that I met the first day of kindergarten. The others were added all at once when we all worked together in the early 90s. I literally sometimes think I would not be able to function without one of them. Literally.

And nope, not magic, but something so open about you that isn't there for others. I have it with one friend as well.

Gina said...

That's it EXACTLY! They know "me" and that's what I love, not my other roles in life. I love my Frack. I'm the luckiest girl in the world to have them.

Gina said...

My life would not be my life if they weren't beside me and I don't even want to spare a moment thinking about it! They just "get me" so there is no need for explaining or bringing them up to speed even if we haven't talked in a while. Time never passed! Met Susie our girls' kindergarten year, too.

I don't open that way for many people, EVER! I have to feel safe, and trust with someone. Then it's easy access to everything and visa versa.

Jack said...

Those types of friendships are magical.

Gina said...

Truly!!!!!!!

Ed Pilolla said...

friends are truly priceless. it's hard for me to fathom a basic concept of heaven or even peace in the afterlife without friends, of all kinds.

Gina said...

Ed! I totally agree with you. On earth...I couldn't even go there, wouldn't want to.