I’ve been thinking about the importance of female friends, particularly as we age. Today I honor my Birthday Bestie. But before I get into detail about that, I too honor the dear friends I have in my life. I feel fortunate in friendship. As I chat about A Map of Her Own in my recent and upcoming booktalks, I too recognize how the theme of female friendships shines through the books I’ve written. It brings me such joy to think back about my creation of characters Amelia and Sarah in Beyond the Ripples, my first novel. Two women who may never have found each other if not for an unusual – or serendipitous event – bringing them together. Two women who find themselves in need of such a friendship as they navigate life’s challenges. And yes, in A Map of Her Own, Celia slowly uncovers the importance of close female friendships, even if she never bought into the belief when younger.

Here, it is my birthday, and what do I choose to do? Finish up the blog I crudely began to dictate during yesterday’s long solo walk. Though, not to ignore my dear male friends. After all, it took me early years of my life to recognize I could, in fact, add close female friends to my already comfortable collection of guy friends.

Today, I am grateful too for male friends and relatives. Yet I struggled to feel I fully fit in with girls while growing up. I did have friends, but difficult family moves during important developments stages (beginning of 7th grade and middle of 8th) helped me continue my path of independence, finding friendship mostly by floating into groups identified by themes: music, sports, classes.

Earlier this week I visited with a friend from my youth as we sat together with her mother during her end of life stage. I reminded this friend later how her reaching out to me as a new kid in the middle of 8th grade was a gift. I’m grateful these fifty some years later we have each other, even if we rarely see each other, as we reflect on shared times of our past and current end of life losses. I am rich in friendships – several others I’ve too been able to celebrate this past week. I think about times we’ve shared and the stories we hold, the grief and sadness and the fun. And how much we sometimes have to work to foster their continuation. Sometimes we have to let go of disappointment, anger and frustration as we remind ourselves of the importance of continued friendship. And yes, sometimes, too, we need to let go.

But about that Birthday Bestie. We met in PE our freshman year at Lincoln High. I vaguely remember waiting in line to be weighed and measured – is that possible? We were both “short” and learned soon after we shared the same October 28 birthday and birth year. I remember, though she doesn’t, that I could tell she was more popular than me. Popularity determined by number of friends. I still felt I was a “new kid” and relied on, then, sports to find most of my girl friends. I too had already created a life being comfortable in my own independence. Even then spending free weekends walking alone downtown to go to my favorite Multnomah County Central Library, jog in Washington Park or shoot hoops at the MAC.

Yet, it was soon after, that the two of us became fast friends. And yes, she invited me into a teenage hood I hadn’t yet experienced. I remember one early morning when she had spent the night and we wandered down to a “Sambos” open-all-hours restaurant on NW Burnside. My parents were out of town, the two of us doing nothing really wrong other than staying up all night and deciding to go out for breakfast. Because we generally followed the rules we felt obliged to tell our waitress we were up early because we were going fishing. The waitress knew better and we naively giggled behind our menus. The next year I recovered from the devastation of this newfound friend’s moving back East by saving my Kopper Kitchen paychecks for my first airplane trip. She returned with me this summer before senior year when we borrowed my parent’s Ford to visit the University of Montana. And over the next decades we moved through college, cycling together abroad (see Coming on Age on Two Wheels) after graduation. We shared weddings, the joys and challenges of work and marriage and parenthood, and griefs association with the aging and deaths of our parents and loved ones. And resolutely we continued our friendship. There is something about being with someone who knew you well when you were thirteen.

And with this Bestie, as all friendships, I remind myself. They are to be nurtured, fertilized, and sometimes sprinkled with patience. But each friendship offers something special and unique during this journey we have on earth. Together. Perhaps it’s time to give a call or send a card or even a text to that special friend. You never know when they could use a reminder that you are thinking about them.

Photos from the years: Celebrating October 2024 birthday at Mt. Rainier National Park; Spending the night in an Italian churchyard with new friends after not finding accommodations; Hiking near Horgen Switzerland.

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Related blogs:
Serendipty, Friendship and Cartwheels
Coming on Age on Two Wheels