the tortoise and the hare

"Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. " George Washington

I have a friend who is a runner; I would consider her a "serious" runner. The fact of our almost 10 year friendship still amazes me, because I am the kind of person runners look down their tanned noses at.

I am more than a little soft in the middle; I feel like an Olympic athlete when I finish my daily 3 mile walk, (and she pats me on the back for it), but she runs twice that far on a slow day. She has an enormous wardrobe of race T-shirts; I have a lot of nightgowns. She frets over injuries which sideline her for a week or two (she has to use her rowing machine those days), I fret over not enough time to read. But she apparently likes me anyway, even if she can't respect me!

Last week at our children's swim lessons, (during which she faithfully goads me to swim across the pond with her), she confided that the one good thing she could think of about turning the big five-o is that she would be in a new age class and her times would automatically look better. She told me how fortunate I am that I don't have her "performance issues" to deal with, the unspoken script being "because you have never performed in the first place." Another day she told me my upper arms would "not look so bad" if I got a little sun.

So, what is it I love about this friendship, this friend? I mean, with friends like this. . . Well, this woman has stuck with me through thick and thin (an unfortunate metaphor considering the two of us). Several years ago I went through a very difficult time in my family and when other people scattered like cockroaches when the light is turned on, (alright, another unfortunate metaphor, though curiously apt), she hung around, endured the glare; she let me know she could not be scared away that easily. She exhibits the same tenacity in friendship as she does on the road. Neither rain, nor sleet nor gloom of night keep her from pounding the pavement every morning. Neither gossip nor innunendo nor the embarrassment of associating with someone whose family name hit the evening news more than once could kept her from sitting beside me when everyone else was clustered at the other end of the bleachers.

So, I can easily excuse her if the words "flabby" or "slow" occasionally slip into our conversations. I don't really mind hearing about blisters and toenail issues that might cause some people to blanch. I can handle her grousing about how baggy this or that particular brand of tiny size 10 jeans are. She has earned the privilege as far as I'm concerned. She is entitled to the appellation, "friend."