My childhood bestie won me over with jokes about our primary school teachers and kept me laughing for the next ten years. Although we haven’t seen each other face-to-face in decades, I would walk through fire for her if she ever needed me to – and I’m pretty sure she would crack me up while I was doing it.

In high school I befriended a beautiful Homecoming Queen who had the mouth of a sailor, and the wittiest, prettiest, anti-school-rocker-groupie I had ever known. I still adore them both.

Thanks to social media, I’ll never lose touch with my college girls and hometown friends – we’re bonded forever by keg beer, all-nighters and camping trips. Just thinking about them makes me smile.

Then there are my boys: the one I met in sixth-grade religion class who stood by me all these years and will forever have my heart, and the one who schooled me on Madonna and taught me how to break them.

None of those friendships though, could have prepared me for the enduring love, devotion and utter co-dependence that define my greatest relationships now.

I met my two closest friends during our first year of college more than twenty years ago. We have been inseparable every day since. Our murky relationship exists somewhere between best friend, spouse, sibling and parent. We can’t define it, so we don’t. I was immediately drawn to their light, laughter and uniqueness. They were unapologetically driven, and made me believe that anything was possible – even for three gay kids who had nothing in the world back then but ambition. We held fast to each other while building our lives… moving to New York together, coming out together, living for years together, surviving together. Through marriages, births, deaths, love and loss, our friendship has remained the one constant.

It’s not easy for anyone new to break into that fold. We’re fiercely protective of each other in a way that is difficult for some to understand – there’s a trail of broken friendships and shattered marriages to prove it. Somehow though, a few brave souls have penetrated the wall we’ve built around ourselves and solidified a permanent spot: a mouthy girl from Queens; an innocuously funny schoolmate from Sweden; a couple of dapper gentleman from Manhattan.

Lately I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. Why them? And it occurred to me that it’s simply because they stayed. Day after day, year after year, they stayed to build memories; and now, those memories are ingrained into who we are. Perhaps the true formula for friendship is mutual admiration, trust, loyalty and, above all, time.

Every so often I find myself making a new friend, which frightens me and makes me pull back. I realize now that I’ve been measuring those friendships against an almost impossible standard. It’s easy to form decades-long relationships when you’re young. But as you get older and time gets shorter, perhaps those coffee chats and laughs over shared interests are enough. And who knows, maybe in a few years from now I’ll look back and those acquaintances will still be in my life. If they are, they should be wary.

Once in my heart, I hold on.

It occurred to me the other day that I never let anything go. From childhood treasures to my favorite books to every card and note ever written to me, I hold on.

I’m the same way with friendships. I don’t put much effort into fostering new ones because my pockets are already full with the people I’ve collected over the years. Sure, there are coworkers, acquaintances and mom-friends that I share cups of coffee and a few laughs with, but my true friendships and loyalties run deep.

I met my first-ever friend playing on the sidewalk a few houses down from my own when I was two-years-old. We’re still friends to this day.

Time is the Anchor

by Cynthia Gunnells

April 13, 2017