Girlfriends

I don't really think of myself as the type of person who has best friends. I have lots of friends, and several close friends, but I think of each of them as fitting a different niche in my life. There's the friend I know I can call at 3am when I'm feeling a little crazy and can't sleep, there's the person I prefer to watch movies with, and the one I like to chat with over coffee. Of course, these are oversimplifications, but you get the point. But I spent the past week planning a surprise going away party for Corrine and realized that I do sort of fall into something of a preferred friend pattern. I was starting to feel a little guilty and like a control freak because I did so much of the party prep on my own, but then I realized that was because the person I most wanted to share the work with was the guest of honor! I nearly ruined the surprise a dozen times because I kept wanting to tell her all about the process (how surprisingly hard it is to find going away themed party supplies, how creepy the baby shower aisle is in party stores, how funny the boys were about delegating out beverage and vegetable duties). She's the third in a line of buddies who I certainly didn't take for granted, but who I do think I didn't fully realize just how much I depend on them until now I'm faced with a big open space. First April moved to Boston, then Sanna to LA, and now Corrine to SF. It's not that I don't have other people to hang out with, it's just that these were always the first I'd call, the ones I knew would invite me out or over if I called up on a friday or saturday night and announced that I was bored (aka going stir crazy in my own house). Travers used to be my person for that sort of thing too, and he's still around, but now that he's in a relationship it feels like an invasion to call up last minute without pre-made plans. Which is dumb, I know. And I'm not trying to throw myself a pity party. I'm just realizing two things - I'm a great bit more lonely than I thought I was, and I'm a much different person than I used to be - for both undergrad and grad school I moved to a town where I didn't know anyone (ok, I sort of knew two people here from visiting campus 6 months earlier, but they were hardly ready-made friends) and that excited me and wasn't very scary at all. Now I find the prospect of needing to find a new 'best friend' in a town where I am already well established a little daunting. Starting over again somewhere new seems downright impossible.