Once upon a very long time ago, I dabbled in scouting. That is to say, my mom dropped me off at a church basement and I played, sang, and met new friends. I wasn’t a scout for long, but one song that has always stayed in my mind goes something like this:
Make new friends, but keep the old
One is silver, and the other gold
I think we held hands and smiled at each other and then ran out to meet our moms. I’m getting ready to attend my annual Girls Weekend and can’t help but think how appropriate this song is. What is Girls Weekend you ask?
It is the one weekend my old friends set aside each year to reconnect.
Before there was such a thing as “finding your tribe”, there were besties. Besties were friends usually found in high school or college. For me, it was college. I managed to find the best group of women who didn’t care too seriously about dating and instead loved having fun with the gals. These were the women who helped shape who I am today. They were right there as I made mistakes, found who I was, and determined the woman I would be. They encouraged, they challenged and they just plain had fun.
Without them, I’m afraid I would have looked for validation in dating relationships. Instead, I became a whole person on my own and was mature and ready when I finally found my love.
To pay tribute to this amazing time in our lives, to honor our friendship and say to each other “you are like gold to me” – we commit to meeting up once a year. Are we as intimately involved in each other’s lives as we once were? Not a chance. We have thousands of miles between us, households to attend to, careers to nurture, husbands to love and babies to raise. Does that stop us from picking up right where we left off? Not a chance.
Girls Weekend isn’t fancy. It’s not on a beach sipping high priced cocktails.
It’s eating way too much sugar and carbs and drinking box wine. It’s not pretending our lives are put together. It’s complaining, crying and being real. It’s laughing until someone yells “stop! I’m gonna pee!” It’s sitting all day in our sweats, sans make-up, catching up on everything that happened over the year. It’s looking into each other’s faces – the ones that now have laughing lines, eyes that have cried tears of grief and sorrow, smiles that have known true love – and saying “you are gold, you are treasured”.
I challenge you to commit to honoring the women and friendships in your life that have been your treasure.
Call up that high school or college friend and make plans to get together. Send a card. Drop a text letting them know you are thinking of them. Don’t let them slip away. Yes, make new friends, but certainly keep the old.
