Monday, December 10, 2007

Friends are family - part I

25 days of my favorite things - #3
Not to discount my family, but right now so many of my friends and neighbors are my family. Many of my family live some distance away and even the ones we love we don't see often enough. I am lucky enough - knowing that I chose this place and these people, I still consider myself lucky and fortunate - to live in the best neighborhood in the world. My best friend since 1st grade lives 6 houses away and next to her is also someone who grew up in my hometown. I spend New Year's, 4th of July and many other holidays with my neighbors and we all have our "annual events" - the Weird Beer Party, Halloween Party, the Rocket party, camping, the softball team and the scrapbook group.
They are the people I call if my husband's out of town and I'm pregnant and sick with the flu and I just need to sleep - they take my kids for the day. They are the people I call if I promised my kids we'd make cookies that look like pizza and I just need 1 egg and my husband scrambled the last of the eggs yesterday. They are the people I call if I forgot to return the movie to the library and "hey - are you going into town today?". They are the people who call me when their daughter awakens at 1am with febrile seizures. We bring gifts and dinners to the new parents bringing home the newborn from the hospital - or Korea or Vietnam. And then we all call each other when one us finds a lump in her breast while feeding the 6 month old (he is now almost 5 and mom is doing great). I am eternally grateful for these people - my friends.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." - Anais Nin

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