"Best" Friends

I was stymied this week by a question from The Surfer. I was checking my phone/email, and literally laughed out loud. He asked me to fill him in on the joke (a reasonable request). The joke itself was only sort of funny, but he had heard mention of this particular lab friend on several occasions.

"Is she your best friend?"

Me: "..."

Honestly, what can a person say to that question? At some point in life, "best friends" become a thing of childhood, of fairytales.

Best friend?

In a many ways she is. She and I are the only two left at lab from our previously larger and more boisterous group. She is the one that I connect with in many ways, someone with whom I can have a real, honest conversation, whether about family, love, God, research, or good, old-fashioned gossip. The rest of them have moved on--to postdocs and significant others, to Canyon Country, to Belgium, to Florida, to Wisconsin. So at lab? Absolutely my best friend.

But then there are my Bushtits. Words can't possibly depict all of the ways that these two fill my heart and make me smile on a regular basis through their blogs, through our conversations, through our Bushtit Adventures. Our most recent Adventure to Nebraska was so well documented by both of them that I can only point you there and there and return to beating my head against my dissertation.

Best friends?

In many ways, they are. Have we really been friends for more than 10 years? Yes. Traveled together? To California, to Nevada, to all corners of Utah, to Colorado, to Idaho, to Texas, to Ohio, to Nebraska. So to the core of my being that responds to the natural world in a way that is so fundamental, that makes my soul sing? Absolutely my best friends.

I don't see them often and in many ways their lives have diverged from mine, both of them married with children. That doesn't detract from our friendship in the slightest, but our lives are open to different pages.

So what of the friends that have taken me in during this year of upheaval? The ones who cheered me on during my marathon? Who continue to cheer me on during my PhD marathon? How many married couples would open their home long-term, without limits, to a friend going through a traumatic personal time? Would take that friend into their family, and into their extended family? Would welcome my parents and friends to make themselves at home? Would make me feel at home here even when their parents or siblings, nieces and nephews are visiting? Best friends? More like family.

And there are other friends. Friends who I know through the wonder of the internet and the craziness of blogging, who send their support across the miles. There is my divorce buddy, politicking guru, happy hour friend who will be leaving me for DC in a couple of months.

Best friends.

All.

I am truly blessed.

I know that in the next couple of months I will be moving away from the comfort zone that the lab has become. More friends will be leaving California. I will be moving out on my own. In a mere two months I will be joining a whole new class of medical students. I know I will make new friends. And those new friends will not detract in the slightest from the friends that I already embrace. My net simply widens.

Love is not a limited resource, but one that grows when stretched.