Keeping adult friendships as a mum is hard. Sometimes the only other adults you interact with on a daily basis are other mothers at the school gate or work colleagues.
While swapping niceties and attending the same pilates class are all well and good, our friends and acquaintances are nothing on our best friends.
Mum and blogger, Michelle Zunter recently shared on Scary Mommy the importance of having a best friend, especially as our lives change as mothers.
If we were to define all the positive attributes that make a best friend, Zunter says, hers would "definitely nail it. She’s been nailing it for almost three decades."
A best friend, according to Zunter, is someone who knows you better than yourself. They are there for the good times and the bad:
"My best friend has dragged me out from the depths of despair when no one else was watching. My best friend held me all night when my heart exploded, and my pride was shattered. My best friend cradled me in the midst of debilitating heartbreak."
Her best friend is more than just a friend, she's "a sister, a partner, a roommate, a mother figure, and — at times — even an enemy."
As life, families and work can take friends in different directions, the bond between best friends remains strong:
"Thousands of miles, love affairs, marriages, divorces, and babies separated us....We were and are cemented in sisterhood."
Zunter continues that even when best friends are separated for long periods of time they can still talk "as if no time has passed between us":
"Time passing by is nothing but another element to our already seasoned friendship. The point is that as time is passing, we are always in each other’s thoughts, somewhere. The point is that at some point, we always reconnect. We are soulmates."
She continues that:
"A best friend doesn’t share your DNA, your family, or even agree with you in many circumstances. But a best friend is your blanket, your shield, and ultimately your mirror for the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, and all of those complicated gray areas in between."
Zunter has us thinking about the true meaning of friendship, and how even though life might get in the way, a true best friend will always be there, even if just in spirit:
"You are truly what it means to be the best."
