Friends

I was just reading a piece in Vanity Fair about the "Friends" phenomenon. While I was never super into the show, it was pretty interesting to read about its humble beginnings. No real stars, seasoned writers who were used to seeing their share of failed pilots. They approached it like any other pilot. Maybe it will make it, maybe not. But they were passionate about the idea from the outset. It wasn't a fabricated concept like "what if an alien lived with this regular family?" or even "what if rich white people adopted two black kids"... it was intended to be about that time in your life when your friends are your family. When you hang out at the cafe, at the bar, telling stories about your day. When you spend holidays together, take vacations together, do pretty much everything together.

Reading about it and seeing it summarized took me back to my early days in San Francisco. I lived with a rotating group of girlfriends. We worked odd jobs, odd hours. We went out together, we ate together (whoever was home at whatever time one of us got home), we cooked together and we dyed our hair (constantly) together. I'd be lucky to spend as much time in a year with a friend now as I spent in just a few days with those ladies.

Later I moved just a few blocks away, and lived with a guy I didn't know all that well - a friend of a friend from Philadelphia. We had a rotating third roommate, and Philly guy's girlfriend basically lived with us as well. Those two introduced me to the man who would be my husband - and then ex husband. The four of us were inseparable. At this point we all had "regular" jobs, but it was never in question that we would eat dinner together every night, drink a few pints, go out on the weekends, staying up until the time I currently wake up on a Sunday morning.

My friends were my family. No doubt about it. If I got bad news at the doctor, I came home and told them. If I wanted to celebrate a promotion, we went out to the local bar, Chances, and drank too many IPAs. If we were bored, we also went to Chances, and maybe drank too many IPAs.

Somewhere around 30ish, the friends receded just a bit. I moved in with my boyfriend (the one that would become the husband), I got married, I had a baby. In a short period of time, seeing friends became a special activity to be planned weeks in advance, rather than a way of life. It didn't make the friends less important, just less constantly present. And the husband became the one to tell good news and bad news to first. Friends also transitioned over the years. I needed some who also had kids, to understand the plight of first time motherhood - the tears, the tiredness, the tantrums (mine, Virgil's, hubbie's). Some friends faded out, some stayed but more in the background. The college ones that I'd first lived with had spread out across the country, nonetheless, we were tied together with hefty everlasting rope. Even though I might only see them once a year. Or less.

And others - work friends, mom friends - became much more visible. I always thought the friends that "mattered" were those early friends. The ones that became friends when friends were your family. And they do. But somehow, along the way, new friends became tethered to me, to my life of today. They knew me, my strengths and weaknesses and turmoils, as an adult. One such friend, Steve, started out as a work acquaintance. Over the years, we worked more and more closely together. One night, in 2007, we found ourselves together in London. We were with a group, but we ditched them, and drank pints and ate steaks and talked books until midnight. We both loved Caroline Knapp's books "Drinking: A love story" and "Appetites". More importantly we both loved books. We knew the difference between "good books" and "bad books" (a few years later we both enjoyed - that's an understatement - "Twilight" and all the rest of 'em) but read both and took them for what they were. I consider that the evening we became friends.

A few years later, we ended up working even more closely together, on a team with its work cut out for it. It was a slog. We seemed to travel endlessly. We hit the hot spots in the U.S. including Little Rock, Dallas and Menomonee Falls. We also traipsed through Barcelona, Paris, London, Brussels, Instanbul and Munich and back again, several times over. Sounds glamorous and it felt that way at first, and then it got exhausting. A city a day for a week, walking endless city miles to visit department stores that all seemed to look the same after a while. That doesn't even sound like it could be part of someone's job but it is, when you market pants. We shared bottles of wine and beers and secrets. I was at the beginning of the end of my marriage and he listened while I talked and he shared his own ups and downs. He and his partner (yes he's gay making our friendship nothing to raise an eyebrow about) faced good times and bad in their 15 year plus relationship (a lifetime for the gays) and weathered every storm, admirably. He never judged or told me what to do. And when I decided what to do, he was there.

It's not a mushy friendship. We don't really hug. There's no heads on shoulders during crying jags. But I wouldn't have made it through without him. He always listened, he always called to check in, he always made me laugh. Working as closely as we did, 8 sometimes 10 hours a day together, it was like one of those friendships from my twenties. Where you literally spend all your time with each other. I spent more time with him than my husband (was that the problem?), my kids, anyone. Such is modern work life. That time spent, along with the experiencing of every emotion under the sun together from joy to despair to sheer exhausted frustration forges a friendship tethered by one of those everlasting ropes. Like Courney Cox and Jennifer Aniston, the alter egos of Monica and Rachel. These two seem to still be BFFs, providing shelter from the storms of divorce and rehab and bad reviews and stolen husbands. Even though they don't do the show "Friends" together anymore. They became friends who became family just like the characters on the show. (I can't believe I'm making this analogy to "Friends" a show I never really cared for... corny...but oh well.)

Such is Steve, for me, even though we weren't in our twenties when we met and we certainly aren't in our twenties now. It doesn't hurt that he thinks I'm funny ("you funny" he says), smart ("I would never want to have to debate you. No way") and generally great company. Back at ya.

All of this is a long windup to say that Steve is moving. To New York. And I hate it. I'll probably see him as much as I do now. If not more. We haven't worked together for a year. So we see each other for dinners about once every six weeks and talk on the phone through daily challenges or bigger life decisions. I go to NY regularly for work, he'll visit here no doubt. But I'm sad anyway. I know how it goes. He'll be tied to me but I'll reach for the phone less ... someone else closer by will fill the daily void (I hope!) ... and while we'll still be thick as thieves, we'll just have a different less constantly present kind of friendship. For now.

So long pal. I'll see you in June when I'm in NY. Don't forget to tug the rope once in a while.