As time runs by, and I am growing older, I have less and less friends. Everybody says this is quite normal, but to me it came as a surprise.
When I was a child, all the kids from the neighbourhood played together in the street. We were basically out all the time, just dropped home in the mid- afternoon to grab a snack. Naturally, we came back home at dinner time. That was in the summer. In the winter we sledged down the steep streets and threw snowballs at each other. There were hardly any cars in the streets, though I lived close to the center, in the capital. I had sooooo many friends.
In primary school, a typical birthday party was the whole class plus the teacher. 30 to 35 small and big people, balloons, sandwiches, and an enormous cake. I had soooo many friends.
Then came high school, and for the first time I found friends who were exactly like me. We had the same taste in music, films, clothes, hairdos. We started travelling together, then came university, first summer jobs, Augusts on Greek beaches, fun in the sun, night clubs. I had sooo many friends.
The first job I got, the second, the third. Every time I changed the company I met another great person, or two. The first country abroad, the second, the third, during holidays, for short or long stays. So many languages, soo many friends.
Life with my husband, moving around, changing countries, even continents. People are the same everywhere, there are good and bad people, that’s all, there are no colours or races. I left every city we had lived in crying, just because of friends.
Times have changed. No time for friends anymore. Everyone is too busy, too tired, too far away… Not so many friends left.
But I still remember all of them, those great, great times we spent together, as well as betrayals, lost friends, ex-friends, and it is hard to write it, late friends.
I had a friend who was so much older than me that we were often asked if we were a father and a daughter. We were bursting in laughter every time, saying: No, we are a grand-father and a grand-daughter!
I have friends who are 18 years younger than me. Technically, I could be their mother.
I have a friend I met at a New Year’s party when we were 17, such a long time ago, and we’re still friends. A friend I met on a plane, and then we ran together from one terminal to the other to catch another plane, it was 19 years ago. The one who took two different trains, in the snow and cold, crossed a border just to come to see me. Friends who helped me move, who meet me at the airport when I rarely come back home, friends who send me books and other lovely surprises.
Almost all my friends visited me in numerous countries I lived in, and I am happy to say I dined them, and wined them, and spoiled them with presents. That’s what friends are for!
I have new friends, as I have recently moved again. But I don’t forget the old ones. Life is too short for not having time for friends. There are some I see often, and some I haven’t seen in years.
There are not so many people in my life now, like in some earlier periods, it is true. But now I can look back, and say to a friend: Hey, do you know we’ve been friends for more than 40 years? And we can still laugh and cry, celebrate and mourn, watch a film, fall asleep on a couch, and go on a trip together…
Two crucial sentences in a friendship are: How are you, really? and: Do you need my help with anything? Friendship is like a plant, if you put it in the dark corner, and don’t water it, it will die off, a friend taught me this, long time ago. And, yes, some friends are forever.