BFFs

I read in the Wall Street Journal once that women are more likely to rely and keep friendships with other women than men are with their male peers. The article cited the case of a group of women who grew up together as girls and young women and continue to visit each other despite leading separate lives that drew them down different career and personal paths in all different areas of the country. I thought of this article instantly when I read this week's readings about friendships as a young girl. Growing up the friendships I had were a vital part of life's greatest memories, whether it be developing a secret spy club a la Harriet the Spy with my neighborhood girlfriends, running around hopped up on soda and pizza at a sleepover or taking my first underage swig of lukewarm tequila (harsh start to drinking, I know). You're best friends are the girls that are going through exactly what you are, that are closest to your school/personal/familial experiences. Having moved every two or four years throughout my childhood and adolescence I had a multitude of best friends that I vowed to continue writing once I moved and never did. But I can tie a specific happy memory to each of them. For Annie and I it's squeezing into the crawl space at her parents house and seeing how long we could last telling ghost stories in the dark. For Kathleen and Cassie and I it was writing letters to each other with neon colored pens. For Karen and I, it was watching fireworks at the summer festival and talking about boys (though she always had the boyfriend, not I). And there were more: Jennifer, Selena, Kendall. Each holds tiny pieces of my girlhood. For the most part these tiny pieces are memories of empowerment, where we, together, did something crazy and for us to understand alone. We rebuked what our parents, teachers and classmates said it meant to be a "nice, normal girl" and just were ourselves.

And then there's the other side of girlhood friendships. There's the hierarchy in the group of girlfriends. There's the one best friend that you always want to impress, to have her say you're so funny/pretty/smart for once. As Sarah Harrison writes in her essay "Tampoons" "There's something about her that makes me feel sloppy and always will" (Goldwasser 126). There's the best friend that sells herself short, playing coy and going for the guy who you know talks bad about her to his friends only to resent you when you try to be honest and say something about it. Best friends can teach you the meaning of the word "bitch" and sometimes they'll even wield the word against you. Friends can become 'friends' to the point where you become the shy member of the group who, as Rebecca Murray writes in her essay "Big Shoes," is "very concerned with what I was saying, worrying that people were judging me" (Goldwasser 128). You buy the pair of orange aviators because your best friend said they were sexy on you and she already has a boyfriend so she must know. Still, you know they're not you when you wear them. You laugh at some jokes or adore some male movie star your best friend(s) does too even thought you're not quite sure you get it. As much as you can be 'you,' sometimes there's too much 'you' and your bet friend(s) may think you're getting annoying and want to hang out with you less.

When this dark side reared its head in my friendships I had my family, always. Moving from place to place throughout your life can teach you that your family is the one thing constant, the one thing that matters above all. My parents stressed this point, making family camping trips and appearances at every holiday in New York (where most of my relatives reside) a priority. While reading Zulay Regalado's essay "Pots and Pans" I was taken back to my Cuban grandfather's warm yellow kitchen on Thanksgiving, the tiny room packed tight with parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, brothers, sisters, smiles, tears, loud laughs and yelling. I say it was my grandfather's kitchen even though he lived with my grandmother because he was the one that spent all day cooking and singing. As Regalado writes one of these gatherings "can be quite the scene for any normal person to endure" (Goldwasser 63). To this day nothing makes me happier than a long table of food bordered by my noisy relatives and the sometimes startled girlfriends of my younger brothers (my boyfriend of three years has already been desensitized to the craziness. There I learned that I can be loved for who I am. That I can speak up about how I feel if I can get over everyone else. That being loved had nothing to do with how you looked or dressed but how you loved yourself and others. You want to be embarrassed about family but you just can't when you're sitting in the thick of it at 3:35 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. Regalado's description of the scene warmed me over:

"Some of the children let out shrilly giggles, revealing brilliant holes where their baby teeth once were. As I sat at the packed table, the only teenager of the family, I absorbed the deep laughs and the distinctly Cuban slurring of s's" (Goldwasser 64).

My last year of high school I moved to Tampa, Florida and found Chelsea, Erin, Justine and
Amanda who remain my best friends to this day. We moved to separate parts of the state for college but I know who to call when I'm sad or lonely or really happy and have great news. We're all extremely quirky and I love it when we're together because we just click. As Jasmine Sennhauser wrote in her essay "Decent Guy on the Planet" "Hang out with us for two seconds, and you'll either walk away confused or start laughing your head off" (Goldwasser 146). We experienced college partying together, with all the awkward details of hookups as well as a healthy dose of skinny dipping on the beach. We've talked over the men in our lives as well as what we want to be when we grow up (though some of us still aren't sure). They aren't the best friends I've had in the past, they're family. Who knows, maybe one day we'll end up in the Wall Street Journal?