Friend Inventory

I can't take credit for that term. My sister just used it on the phone. I totally got what she was saying. I tend to think of my friends in categories: 

• Work friends: You work together and you bond in the BS of work. You can hang out at meetings, but you probably wouldn't be friends otherwise.
• Childhood friends: Friends since you were little. You can go for years without talking and everything is good when you see each other again.
• Nurse friends: More than a work friend. Went through hell together (like 'Nam, but in scrubs instead of camo). May or may not keep in touch, but like a childhood friend you can always pick up where you left off.
• Neighbor friends: You go to parties at your respective homes, help each other out, but stay out of each other's business. Sometimes become a true friend (Polly).
• Sister friends: Relatives that totally rock and are a true friend (Sulie and Jackie).
• Friends that are a boy: A guy friend that you can totally depend on yet you would never want to date/do (Birch).
• True friends: Someone you can depend on. There is a give and take. They remember the little things and get you. 

It is sad, Sulie brought this up because she was saying how she has really seen who her true friends are lately. I knew what she meant. After the John/Back Surgery/Get Laid off time in my life I went through the same thing. It has made me think about what kind of friend I am and who I want to have as a friend. In the past few years, I have started to speak up if things didn't feel right with a friend. Some have been receptive, others have not. Two years ago I "broke up" with a childhood friend that I had known since I was 14. She lives a few miles from me and we shop at the same Publix. I sometimes drive past her and it is weird. Her Mother once said to me that we couldn't expect the friendship to last 30 years and that we had grown into two very different adults. It was true, but sad.