Some are silver

...and the others are gold.  Today I am thankful for old friends, you know, the gold ones.  Tonight is our annual KSM (that's Kelly, Sue & Margaret) Thanksgiving dinner.  We stray from our monthly GNO (that's Girls' Night Out) events twice a year -- once in January for mani/pedi's & wine at our favorite salon, and once in November for our feast at Margaret's beautifully restored farmhouse home.

Kelly, Margaret and I have been friends forever -- since elementary school - through good hair and bad.

We fit together like a unique puzzle -- each of us holding essential components the others do not have.  We bridge each others' streams.  Kelly's mom once told us that we were, "suspiciously alike" (she did not necessarily mean it as a compliment)!

We have navigated this journey called life together, always knowing that we had each other to count on.  We have been each others lab partner (MLP!), we were flag twirlers together, we snuck into the all-nighters together, we saw "Flashdance" 17 times together, we laughed and cried together. We grew up together.

Margaret and I went to Bucknell University together,

and later traveled together in Italy, England and France.

Kelly and I spent our summer breaks working at the YMCA's Camp Shawnee.

We spent many years traveling to Newport, RI for the annual Folk Festival, sleeping sometimes in a rainy tent, sometimes in a questionable B&B (don't eat the pear), and, when our paychecks got better, an actual hotel!

We have commiserated with each other over many boyfriends and girlfriends, we have sung Les Miserables at the top of our lungs while crossing the English Channel, we have shared many a drunken stupor ("No, Sue ... you did not walk through a screen door..."), we have helped each other move and move and move again, we have driven hundreds of miles to concerts and vacations ("don't get mad at me if my car breaks down"), we have shared countless meals, one IN a creek, and we have celebrated many birthdays which, coincidentally are all exactly 13 days apart: July 15, July 28 and August 10.

Kelly and Margaret were the first people I came out to, they were the first ones to know I was engaged, and the first ones I called when I was pregnant.  Kelly was at Olivia's birth and is her Godmother.

Of course, we were in each others' weddings:

It is comforting to have friends with whom you can communicate through only one word as there is no need to explain anything -- their memories are your memories.  Being with Kelly and Margaret is home, it is safe and warm, it is non-judgemental, it is silly and fun and familiar.  If I could wish one thing for my children, it would be to surround themselves with good friends.  To know there is at least one person who is "yours" for all your life -- different from a partner or a child, but equally as important and powerful -- is to call someone friend.  I am lucky I have two "someones" to call friend.

"The Best things in life come in threes, like friends, dreams and memories".