Best Friends Forever - Irene S. Levine [100]
MAKE TIME FOR FACE TIME
This cannot be understated: making and keeping friendships takes time, and there’s no substitute for making time in your life for friendships. Schedule time for friendships just as you would schedule any other task or event that is important to your health and well-being. As you age, making friends becomes more difficult, so it is extremely important to nurture relationships along the way.
If you live near each other, find ways to coordinate chores and other things you have to do: schedule your mammograms or manicures together, go food shopping together, or take an exercise class together.
While friendships, like romance, can be nurtured with occasional phone calls and flowers, there is nothing like face time to remind you why you both became friends in the first place. If you really want to mend or preserve a friendship that appears to be fizzling out, make time for coffee or a walk in the park with just the two of you alone.
Even if the friendship is separated by the miles, find a way to get together at her place, yours, or in-between—even if it’s only once a year.
CELEBRATE MILESTONES
In some ways, little girls never grow up. It always brings a smile to a woman’s heart when a friend remembers her birthday or anniversary with a phone call, e-mail, or card.
If you’ve been disconnected, use the opportunity to reconnect. You might send a note acknowledging the milestone and write, “I’ve missed you. I’ve been thinking of you and hope that we can get together. I’ll call you before the end of the month.” If one of your friends has achieved something special—a promotion, a role in a play, or written a book—send her a note supporting her success.
Several of my neighbors have established a nice tradition. We make plans to have a special lunch together each time one of us has a birthday. Although our lives have taken different paths over the years, it’s a pleasant way to catch up and renew our friendship.
CREATE NEW RITUALS
Girlfriend getaways are increasingly popular options that friends are using to renew their spirits and their relationships. Some women meet one or more times a year at the beach, in the city, or at a golf resort. Whatever the ritual, find something that you both enjoy doing and use it as an excuse to come together periodically. It can be a movie once a month or a trip to the beach each summer.
If you are short of time and/or money, you can plan a “girls’ night in.” Rent a movie and be prepared to pause the DVR each time one of you can’t wait until the end to chat. Themed dinners, Oscar parties, and watching the finales of your favorite TV shows of the season are also perfect excuses for all-girls get-togethers.
KEEP UP YOUR END OF THE BARGAIN
Friendships take work and it takes two women to make a friendship last. No one likes to have plans fall through at the last minute. Try to follow through on what you say you are going to do and keep appointments. Don’t always wait for invitations; take your turn in being the initiator. Attend her parties whenever possible. Don’t be vague about when you will see each other next. Schedule it on your calendar, in pen.
PRACTICE UNEXPECTED KINDNESS
Do something unasked for just because it’s nice. Send her a note on your prettiest stationery telling her why you treasure her friendship. When one woman recently asked her friend for the recipe for chocolate fudge that her three-year-old daughter loved eating at her home, her friend whipped up a batch and left it on her doorstep with the recipe as a surprise. She wanted to let her friend know how much she meant to her.
MAKE HEROIC EFFORTS TO CONNECT WHEN IT DOESN’T HAPPEN ON ITS OWN
Sometimes two paths don’t cross unless we go out of our way to make the connections. One woman described her friendship with someone whose life was far different and busier than her own. “She has six kids; I have zero unless you count my three pets!” she said. But she thought the woman was “amazing” and went out of her way to find commonalities