“Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love & be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.” Sydney Smith

Friends some in our life for a reason sometime – like a lesson we needed to learn, a friend that we needed to be there for us or just to help us smile at a time when we couldn’t. Sometimes friends come into our life for a season – like a soccer mom who is fun to talk to while the kids practice and play, or a new friend in a class you take or a friend of a friend who you run into frequently and establish a friendship. And sometimes girlfriends come into our lives for good. They change the way we think, they influence who we are and they stick around to see us become who we should be.

All types of friends are valuable and needed. What’s important is to recognize the blessing of these friends. Girlfriend Gratitude. Be thankful for your friends. Like our guest blogger ADRIENNE BOLTON shares about her friends:

When you reach your mid-thirties, you realize you’re not a girl anymore. You actually get carded for alcohol, and if you’re anything like me, your kids tower over you. We’ve even let go of pesky insecurities. We’re grown-ups. But, nothing takes me back to girlish nonsense faster than a night out with old friends!

There’s something therapeutic about the kind of laughter that makes your abs feel like Jell-O. Deep, obnoxious giggling that you can only share with true friends. It’s the kind of laughter that only history can provoke, and it’s the kind of laughter that makes your soul smile.

Some friends come and go, but others last a lifetime.

25 years ago I met these kinds of friends. Our lives were filled with sleepovers, make-up, and boys. The biggest worry we had in life was figuring out how to make a sleepover last forever. You remember this? Friday night at Sally’s place, and then on Saturday morning the two of you would begin plotting the rest of the weekend. You would cross your fingers that Sally could come home with you on Saturday afternoon, and then maybe, just maybe you could swing Sunday somehow, too. Selling the idea of bringing a friend to church always did the trick with my parents!

But, then you grow up and life takes you in many different directions.

Time begins to wedge space between lives that were once glued together with the simplicity of childhood.  Life separates us so far that we are left feeling lonely and disconnected. Distance grows and priorities change, and we don’t have the same amount of time to give.

The last few years have taught me something very important about friendship.

We need to wait.

We wait for time to heal hurts. We wait for our lives to intersect again. We wait for each other.

In the meantime, we open our hearts to others and leave space for new seeds of friendship to be planted. We realize that friendship doesn’t look one way, and new friendships teach us a little something about the old ones we are waiting on.

Not everyone can go through the same seasons of life at the same time. Being a “grown-up girlfriend’ takes a little more work than the days of middle school. Our lives may look different, but our hearts have never changed.

One day a reunion will remind you that friendships weathered by the seasons of life can sometimes be refined and made smooth again. That is a precious gift!

If you’re in a season of waiting, be encouraged!

You won’t wait forever. I promise.

ADRIENNE BOLTON is a mother of two and blogger at www.themommymess.com. She writes with an honest voice about the messiness of motherhood, marriage, and parenting. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook. Be sure and subscribe to her RSS feeds to stay up-to-date on her most recent posts!

By the way, we LOVE guest blogs here at Girlfriendology. Have a great girlfriend story to tell? Want to celebrate your fabulous female friends? SHARE! (And, we also have Girlfriend Gurus – check that out to be featured on Girlfriendology!)

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