Silver & Gold

If you were ever a girl scout I'm sure you will remember a very particular friendship song. Taught while in Daisy's [which, for those that aren't familiar with the hierarchy of Girl Scouts, is the youngest level], the song goes a little something like this.....

Make new friends, but keep the old

One is silver and the other's gold

I can't remember if there was more to it, but the lines above have remained tucked away in the back of mind for all these years. When you're growing up friendships come and go as easily as spring rain showers. Each year you're in a different grade, different activity, and sometimes a different school. But the older we get the more we develop a stronger sense of who we are and what we want out of life; the inevitable being that our friendships will change.

For me, college set those ideas into motion and I was able to follow through with them after graduation when I moved to New York. Looking back, I've met some very interesting people, some leaving a huge footprint on my life. You learn to take the good with the bad in friends, and when times are rough you know that if they are truly meant to be part of your life for the marathon that it is, then they will come around and reach out to you. If they never reach back then you know they weren't meant to be a fixture.

Friends are like soul mates. I cherish my friends from NYC as much as my friends in DC.....and nothing can compare to those friends from college that I still make time for with lunch, emails and phone calls. I accept changes in their lives, embrace their new loves, and support them in any way I can. Acceptance is the big one. Friends are bound to change in their mannerisms and ideas....but stick with them long enough and you see they are still that same person.

I was cleaning out some keepsakes the other night and stumbled across a thank you card a dear college friend gave to me when we were 19. She had broken up with a boyfriend and I stayed the night with her, helping her move on by making her watch Sex and the City [FYI: it works every time]. Re-reading that heartfelt letter led me straight to a box of tissues. She and I have had our moments where we fight, laugh, call each other out on our BS, and then laugh again. We always come back to each other......

So, friends of A Charmed Life...never forget that silver and gold are a perfectly acceptable color combination, but also don't forget that to be a friend's soul mate you have to give it your all, as they should be giving the same to you.

xo