Do you see your good friends very little?
You have ‘comma-friends’, with whom you have contact several times a day. You probably have many overlaps in your lives, which leads to many moments of contact. You both have a dog, your children are in the same class, you go to the same gym or you work at the same company. You see each other often anyway, need each other from time to time, and that’s why you end up sitting together on the terrace with a glass of wine a bit faster. Wonderful. I love my neighborhood friends. A quick coffee, borrowing a toilet roll or a vacuum cleaner bag, that kind of thing. But there are also friends whose lives are just a bit different from yours. For example, my best friend already has really big kids and she has also started a restaurant, which means we are never free at the same time. Another friend has a son who is already well into high school, which makes it a bit less quick to meet up than with my friends around the corner who have daughters of the same age. Sometimes I get a shock and think I haven’t seen them in half a year. But that’s completely okay for these reasons:
1. You are always intensely happy to see each other
2. When you see each other, you go all out with a weekend or a huge dinner with everything included
3. You express how much you love each other when you see each other
4. Photos are always taken, which you often forget on other weekdays
5. You never have little she-has-the-same-sweater-as-I-bought irritation
6. When you call each other, it’s immediately like old times
7. You feel safe discussing problems or issues that are happening in your daily life, especially because she is not part of that daily basis
8. You have a helicopter view of your lives
9. You know each other's families and children and loves because you have been together for so long, so your friendship grows on a thick layer of memories. It can withstand a quiet period. And soon your lives will be in the same rhythm again and you will be visiting each other frequently. Or not. Everything is fine.
