Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

On St. Patrick’s Day, I saw a bunch of Irish quotes going around, and one that particularly struck me said, “A good friend is like a four leaf clover: Hard to find and lucky to have.”

The reason it struck me is that I don’t think it’s true. I think it should be the other way around: lucky to find and hard to have and keep. Well, when I say hard to keep, I mean it doesn’t just happen—there is work involved to keep a friendship going for 10, 20, 30 years or more.

I have four friends from high school—A, B, R, and S—who illustrate this perfectly. Any description of our friendship will inevitably sound like the back cover copy of a chick lit book, but I’ll try anyway.

I’ve known B the longest, since we were in middle school together before we both ended up at the same small boarding school. A was my first roommate, and we were so different in so many ways that we joked that we were Ernie and Bert—I was the messy, carefree Ernie, and she was Bert. S found me on the first day we moved into our dorm rooms—she was wandering down the hall, wondering out loud to anyone who might be listening why there were so few electrical outlets in our rooms. And R was just one of those people who drew you in—you wanted to be her friend, felt lucky to be counted among those she called friends.

Among the five of us, we covered quite a spectrum: B was the athletic one (and also the smart one); A was the serious, forthright, straight-laced one (another smart one); S was the loud, funny one; and R was the popular one. And I’m the narrator, so I can avoid labeling myself. But since this was the group I fell in with, I can’t say that these good friends were hard to find. We just found each other, and it was lucky we did.

Keeping them, though—that hasn't been luck. That’s taken some effort over the last (ahem) 30-something years, as we’ve all had life happen to us in a variety of ways and we’re scattered all over the country. 

The gang’s all here, plus a couple of extras—but this was us in high school.

S, although she lives the farthest away, has in many ways been the easiest. We did lose touch for a few years after high school, but got back in touch when my son and her oldest were babies, and the closeness came right back and never left. These days if we don’t talk (or at least chat on Facebook) every day, things feel a little off. We talked through the darkest days of my divorce as well as the darkest days of her cancer treatment, and we talk about plenty else that’s not anywhere near as heavy as that. She’s still the loud, funny one, and so much more. She’s also my sounding board, my reality check. Although A, B, and R were in my first wedding, only S was in my second.

A lives out west now, and sadly, she has health issues that keep her from traveling very much. She did come out for B’s wedding seven years ago, but she won’t be at our high school reunion this fall. The thing I love about A is that she is so very pragmatic that sending an e-mail to make a date to talk on the phone next Tuesday at 3:00 is completely normal, and so that’s what we do. But last week she called me because she had fallen down on the floor with a terribly painful back spasm, and after making sure her 10-year-old could get to school by himself, she asked him if he would bring her pain meds, a glass of water, and her phone before he left, and she called me to pass the time until she could get up. Did I mention she’s incredibly pragmatic? We don’t do it often enough, but we make the phone dates, since that’s the only way to stay in touch. 

R is down at the beach, and although it’s been a few years now since we’ve seen each other, for a long time her home was the place I went when I needed a break from life—she was my refuge from the storm. I thought it might change once she got married, but her husband has welcomed me many times too—sometimes it’s just been me, and sometimes I’ve had my boy with me. One time, before I was coming, she was going through a stressful time, and her husband asked if she really felt up to company. “Company?” she said to him. “Sharon isn’t company. She'll probably end up cooking for us.” There have been times I’ve felt like maybe my friendship with R might just fade away—I’ve changed so much that I know it’s hard for her to keep me as a friend. But we talked about it and decided that, despite our differences now, there’s too much history and our friendship is too important to just let it die. 

B was single for a long time—into her 40s—and she and I were probably the closest in the last years of my first marriage. She does have a lot of natural talent, but one of the things that makes B such a strong athlete and student is that she is tenacious, and she’s a fighter. And she can be rather intense. It felt good having her in my corner when things were hard for me, and it gave me strength knowing that someone with that much fight in her had my back. So that’s why it hurt more than I can say when she decided she needed a break from me several years back and cut me off. It was like a break-up, and a painful one. Her first gesture towards a reconciliation was an invitation to her wedding, and we’ve been building our friendship back ever since. It’s been work—certainly not luck—that’s kept us going, and I’m very glad we’re still going.

There are some people who have a knack for finding four leaf clovers—my dad and my sister both have it, but even if my sister points out a single square foot of grass and tells me there’s one there, I can never see it. I did not inherit the knack for seeing them, but I do have ones they’ve found tucked away in various books in my house.

I do, though, have a knack for finding those people who are going to be lifelong friends, and not just these four. I kind of collect them and hold onto them like a friend hoarder. I’m just not willing to give them up when I’ve found them, because they are precious and rare, like the four leaf clovers. Lucky to find, and worth the effort to keep.