I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends...

Can't help but think of The Wonder Years when I think of that song. Best show on TV in the 80s/90s. I loved me some Fred Savage.

It's a universal truth that, as a woman, you have different kinds of friends during different stages of life.  You have your childhood friends, and then your high school friends. You have your college friends--the ones who hold your hair the first time you overdo it at an off-campus party--and your first work friends from your first real job.  As you go through life experiences, your friend groups change. You have single friends, mama friends. Urban friends and rural friends. And if you're lucky, you hold on to all types of friends throughout all of the craziness that being an adult brings.

I am fortunate. I have a WIDE variety of friends, and they each bring something different and special to my life. I have single friends, the ones who are always up for an impromptu night out and are always willing to listen to my whining about life in general.  I have mama friends, people I know will text me back immediately when one of the kids has a funky rash, or when I need to vent because Tofu disappeared for the millionth time (that little *@#%*@!!). I have special needs mama friends, the ones who talk me down when I'm having a rough ASD day or when I'm suddenly blindsided with worry about my girl and her future. I have high school friends, people I can not see for years at a time and yet always manage to pick up exactly where we left off when we finally get together. I have guy friends (yes, I know that's controversial...I know some people believe that women and men, especially *gasp* MARRIED women and men, can't be friends. I whole-heartedly disagree...) who are like brothers. I have work friends who are there for me when I need to vent about "The Gray Box", but who are equally supportive and caring when my husband is in the hospital. I have friends who are older than me by more than a decade, and friends who are younger than me by over a decade. And each and every one of those friends is important to me, special in different ways but no less significant.

So, to all of my wonderful friends out there--old, young, mamas, single, men, women, gay, straight,--you are what gets me through the days. Thank you so much for supporting this busy, overtired, overstressed, overweight mama. I couldn't do it without you. Feeling so grateful for you all today.