On BFs.

"You'll be with me, like a handprint on my heart." Elphaba sings to Glinda.

I've been reflecting on 40 odd years of best friends and their impact on me (note, not BFFs, because I think life doesn't necessarily work like that - more like people come into our lives for seasons, and then sometimes circumstances move you apart again, and that's ok).

Here are just some BFs worthy of celebration, and if "you scan the credits for your name and wonder why it's not there" it'll be more to do with my memory than your significance to me (L and A, that reference's there for you!).

In infants, I had friend C. We did ballroom dancing together, and our mums were friends, and highlights of our relationships were sitting in the paddling pool in our knickers, and riding up and down her stairs on her disabled brother's stairlift. Juniors were a bit more bumpy friendship-wise, probably mostly because of my social ineptitude, but not helped by being one of a handful of students put in with the year above. But there were some secret languages and bonding over "The Babysitters Club" books.

In secondary I met friend J, another ballroom dancer, and we (cringingly, on reflection) called ourselves "the dynamic duo." Also, L, with whom I shared a love of Alanis Morissette and books, and who came to stay at my dad's house with me. And A, with whom I shared lots of sleepovers including at each other's dad's houses, and even shared chewing gum and beds and clothes, to the point that her older brother made jokes about our relationship. She was remarkably tolerant of my endless talk of church and boys (not necessarily in that order) and who was the one who fondly told me, "You are a bit odd!" And another J, who had an amazing conversion experience, and has remained a wonderfully, impressively loyal friend even when the RAF took her all over the place, sending me things, and inviting us to stay with her in various locations (totally puts me to shame, with my poor efforts at reciprocating). At church there was friend E, who I spoke to on the phone A LOT, and who was my penfriend when she went to France and Mauritius on her gap year.

When I moved to uni I was so blessed to meet E, who was one of only five others studying English at my college and who we quickly clocked was also wearing a WWJD wristband. And we did nearly everything together - lectures and seminars and church and CICCU, often cycling and walking to things together, went to France together twice, and we even went through a phase of wearing matching stripy socks as we sat next to each other. There were lots of other good friendships at university, of course, like K and K, and a bunch of JYAs, but not at quite the same level of synchronicity. And when I went to Oxford for my PGCE, I met K, who let me sleep in her room when Mike came to visit, and was incredibly patient and long-suffering hearing me bemoan the fact that he hadn't proposed yet.

When I started work, friend H was a fellow NQT and we were surprisingly somehow both similar (short, talkative, northern, obsessed with 'Wicked') and opposite (she got me to stroke her lucky rabbit paw before she let me in her car, and drove me to NQT meet-ups and wasn't cross when I was a really poor map-reader). Then one day she was teaching a lesson on the crucifixion and came out of the lesson running into the staffroom saying, "It's true - it's true!" which remains my favourite road to Damascus conversion story ever, and she started coming to church things with me and staying over. It was sad when she moved back up North and I've never had a work friend quite like her. At my next school, there was a different friend H who was an English teacher and we ran CU together and she was so sweet and wise and literally cleaned my (swollen pregnant) feet and all my friend's feet at my 30th birthday party. And I got to observe her meet her boyfriend and get engaged and then - poof! - she was off too, and she became my Austrian penpal and fellow boy-mum and inspired me by writing blogs and poetry. And again, I looked around the workplace and despite there being lots of lovely people, I mourned the lack of friend with whom to really click, as I had with the Hs.

Having babies seems to lead to close bonding, and I was very lucky to have K on my road with a baby boy the same age as Son 1, and for nine months I saw her pretty much EVERY work day and often MULTIPLE times a day, a short intense burst of friendship for people who might not naturally be friends in other circumstances. And at baby group we met friend S who also had a boy, a little older than ours, and S has become a lifelong friend, someone whose house I could arrive at in tears at 6am having been up with a crying baby since 4.30am (thankfully no need for that any more!). Our boys are still BFs nearly 14 years on, which is impressive especially as they have been to different primary and secondary schools. We like showing them photos of when they were tiny together.

And there was a wonderful gang of church mums, lots of input from the wiser slightly older mums at church like R, and peers like J who timed her three to nicely match up with mine and let me hang out at her house a lot and wade in to all the church things she beautifully organised. And K whose laid-back approach to the chaos of family life and willingness to muck in and have me over has made her a firm friend. And of course H who perhaps out of everyone gets closest to the title of BFF as I knew her at university although she then moved away but came back and had a son 12 days before me and has become the person I to whom I talk when things are tough more than anyone else who isn't God or Mike, and when I phone her and say, "Speak truth to me!" she always offers sympathy and prayer and sound advice. She tells wonderful stories of parenting disasters, like when her boys ate the meal worms intended for the birds, and when one put on a used sick bowl as a hat, and the tea bag in the washing machine on a long cycle so it brewed and brewed, so it is very jolly to have someone like that with whom to share stories. And there have been other special and sympathetic ladies since we moved to the village and joined Emmanuel Church, those in homegroup especially families C and E who are such wonderful family friends and with whom we enjoy sharing life, and those with whom I run, like new friend S, with whom I pour out woes to distract us from the misery of running.

According to studies, 6 in 10 Britons have 10 or fewer friends. So for someone who was a lonely only child, is "a bit odd" (thanks, A), and really not exactly "pop-u-lar" (that's there for the first H) I think I've been very blessed with lots of lovely special girls/ladies, which is just as well for an extrovert who craves friendship and attention. And whilst a lot of these people aren't in daily life anymore, I think that's ok, and it's sweet to look back on times together and hope that they have got some good friends close around them now.

"Two are better than one,

    because they have a good return for their labor:

 If either of them falls down,

    one can help the other up."

Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10 is a favourite Bible verse in our house. Thanking God for the BFs in my life, past and present, and how we have been able to support one another.

More on special ladies here: https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-why-it-feels-so-particular-with-me and things women talk about together here: https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-birth-stories