The Nature of Friendship

The Indigo Girls have a lyric:

"I am looking for someone,
who can take as much as I give,
Give back as much as I need,
And still have the will to live."

It's the first part of this that's intriguing...and in some strange way, I think that defines friendship for me. Someone who'll let me love them as fiercely and strongly as I want to. I have friends that are more to me than I am to them. It doesn't matter. What they mean to me is what matters.

We have different friends for different needs.

I have what I call my middle-of-the-night friends. A lot of my theatre friends fall into this category. And some of them have been there for me in the middle of darkness.

I have friends that, no matter how long it's been since we've seen each other, we just take up where we left off.

I have old friends who know where I came from, and our mutual history is our link.

I have women friends, and men friends. And it's amazing how different they are.
I have friends that I laugh with, that I can call up at the spur of the moment and tell them about some whack-o in Wal-Mart or about something that happened to me at the library.
I have friends I have cried with, who help me put it all back together when I just don't know which way to go.
I have friends who've shared adventures, and the mountain top moments of my life--my wedding, the birth of my children, and a death or two.

Friends. Icing on the cake of life, aren't they?