Last week, as I began to pack for a four days in New York, I was lacking my normal enthusiasm. I attributed my mood to my ill and darling, Orchid, and my recent surgery. My husband and I had deliberately stayed home for the past six months(so unlike us) because of our devotion to our pooch; now I was leaving. My surgery came and went with no down time. Not smart. And thirdly, thoughts ran through my mind of the non-stop frenzy that would begin immediately upon our return from the Big Apple. Three dear friends were arriving for the rest of the week from out of town and one was moving in with us for a short time. As I placed the last item of clothing in our luggage I smiled because part of me was looking forward to what lay ahead… spending time with Susan, Patricia, and Sharon. I said out loud as I finished packing, “I will stop and smell the flowers with girlfriends.” This will be good. What I did not know was.. how emotionally marvelous it would be, darlings.

A week full of friendship

Susan was staying in our home for four days and was arriving from New York before we landed back in Chicago. She would greet us at our home when we returned. The next friend to arrive was Patricia, from Dublin, Ireland, and just as Susan was leaving, Sharon was arriving from LA. These friendships go back as far as 26 years.

The week has come and gone. The words and feelings that come to my mind of the experience: warm and cuddly, refreshing, hours of laughter, sharing secret thoughts, learning, and genuine caring. It is called friendship. It was a time of wishing that all the girlfriends I genuinely love lived near instead of many living far. It was a time of wishing I could gather all my wonderful girlfriends, living here, there, and everywhere in one large room and tell them how much they have enriched my life and how much I need them and how I will always be there for them. From Michigan, to Minnesota, to England and Florida, to Idaho and France, to Ireland and LA, to next door and down the street and in the suburbs; from 27 years old to into their 90s and to all of you at Honey Good who don’t know me, yet reach out to me with such love, I am grateful.

My busy life with my husband, Orchid, family, travel, and my love of writing isolates me from continuous interaction with girlfriends. I am fortunate I have managed to keep close friends over the years because I am not in a group who have a constant interchange of everything.

Making time for friends

It is now early Monday morning, after my out-of-town friends have flown to their respective cities, and I just said my good-byes to two Chicago girlfriends. We journeyed out in the cold( it was in the low 40s in Chicago!), for our weekly Monday morning walk. Our togetherness is important.

My husband did not want to me to go because of the cold weather.

I blurted out, “I want to walk with my girlfriends.”

One of my close girlfriends is my neighbor, Patti. My other girlfriend, Emilie is a new friend I met last spring, through Patti. It seems the three of us have known one another forever. We learn, laugh, admire and inspire one other. Patti left first to run to the market so it was just Emilie and me. I turned to her and said, “I thought about ‘new’ friendships and how easy it is to let those relationships slip through our fingers because of busy lifestyles. I am not going to let that happen to ours and other new friends.”

I said that because of the loving bonds and experiences I have with girlfriends who go back to the time I was six years old. Oh sure I have had my disappointments with women. I have weeded those women out. You know our word, ‘delete.’ Use it darlings. Visualize the delete key on your keyboard, your index finger and hit, ‘delete.’ It is as easy as that. You will breathe a sigh of relief.

I am drawn to women of substance whose warmth, sincerity, openness, laughter and desire to live outside the box ‘runneth over.’ That is my prescription; my Sisterhood.

Take a moment to sit down with a cup of coffee, some nice Hawaiian music (I am listening to it now on my Alexa) a pen and paper and make a list of new friends and old friends and… women you want to ‘weed out with a quick delete.’ Make a promise that the women on your list will make your heart sing and you will make time to nurture your new and old relationships. What a great way to start a day.