Who Are Your Golden Girls?
I share almost everything with my closest friends. But what they don’t know is that, tucked away, deep inside the recesses of my brain, is a running list of candidates for the role of Maryann’s Golden Girls.
You see, throughout life, when you meet a person who could potentially be one of your BFFs, you begin to size her up. You give her points for her various traits, such as thoughtfulness, intelligence, sense of humor, empathy and generosity. But as you get older, you might also start thinking about her potential as a post-retirement roommate in a split-level ranch house in Miami.
Don’t laugh.
There are worse ways to ride out the remaining years of my life than sitting around the kitchen table with my besties, eating cheesecake and hashing out the day’s problems. Or teasing one of our housemates who snuck in well past midnight with a bloke from the senior center.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m counting on growing old and sailing around the world with my husband. But God forbid* it hasn’t worked out that way (“pu, pu, pu, as my Jewish pals would warn me to say) when it comes time to trade my stilettos for orthopedic shoes, I have a mental roster of women who would make excellent housemates, should I decide to spend my final decades in the company of hilarious friends.
(*As a slightly neurotic, native New Yorker, I allow myself to play the “God forbid” game from time to time; it’s not a fun pastime, but it will motive you to get your estate planning done.)
I’ve secretly honed in on several ladies who would make an excellent Rose or Blanche to my Dorothy. One of these friends, like Rose, has a heart of gold, an aura of innocence and, most important, an endless supply of highly entertaining, wacky childhood stories. Another is a sophisticated city gal whom I can definitely imagine evolving into a fun-loving adventuress like Blanche, encouraging the rest of us to kick off our fuzzy slippers and venture out to the salsa club. And several others have attributes—ranging from serious mahjong skills to an ability to fix leaky faucets and replace smoke-detector batteries—that make them equally desirable roomies.
(I should, at this time, reveal that whether or not my mother would move in with us to reprise the role of Sophia, Dorothy’s “Ma,” is yet to be determined, but highly dependent on whether she can stop ending every other sentence with phrases like, “Oh well, that’s the story” or “Whaddaya gonna do?” Plus, unlike Sophia, who keeps running away from “the home,” my mom seems to enjoy the place in which she’s living: She says the food is delicious, she no longer has to do her own laundry, and no one ever talks back at her.
The older you get, you start thinking about each of your friend’s potential as a post-retirement roommate in a split-level ranch house in Miami.
Bottom line: The ladies on my list are so amazing that, even if I am lucky enough to find myself on that yacht with my hubby in 15 or 20 years, I will still want each of them to play a prominent role in my life.
It’s become clear to me that I need my friends more than ever. As my children become more independent, I have extra time to spend with other women whose schedules are similarly freeing up. Sure, I love date nights with my husband. But getting together regularly with the girls enables me to indulge in activities he wouldn’t enjoy—like watching the latest Nancy Meyers flick—and to discuss topics he wouldn’t find interesting. Like the empowering messages in Brené Brown’s latest book, the best Pilates moves to firm up jiggly triceps, or everything we’d do with Regé-Jean Page in another life.
Over the years, you acquire all types of friends. High school and college pals are sought after for their supportive qualities, such as their willingness to hold your hair back as you throw up into a frat-house toilet. Then you accumulate work friends, the best of whom have mastered the art of water-cooler banter and are a riot at office parties (remember those?). If you have kids, you get to experience mommy friends, with whom you commiserate about breast pumps, string cheese and temper tantrums (both our toddlers’ and our own).
Throughout your lifetime you also collect “dinner party friends,” the partners of your SO’s college buddies and coworkers, as well as “neighborhood friends” who pull your garbage to the curb when you’re on vacation. You may have also maintained some childhood friends, who knew you way back when you were spraying Sun-In on your hair and sipping Orange Juliuses at the mall. (Any woman who’s seen you in braces and a Farrah Fawcett flip and still thinks you’re cool is a keeper.)
Occasionally, one of these women evolves into a BFF. With one of my pals, it was love at first school-family party. One night at my house, while everyone else was shuffling out the door after dessert, she went into my kitchen and began washing dishes and wrapping leftovers. This was a spectacle that I had witnessed only during multi-generational Italian-American get-togethers back home. I suddenly realized that at this stage in life, people who can help me load the dishwasher are significantly more attractive than those who can nab the best concert tickets.
Sometimes friendships drift when life paths diverge—like when one of you becomes a mom. (For more on the topic of friendship between women with and without kids, listen to my chat with good friend Lisa on this week’s episode of the More Beautiful Podcast.) But I like to think that the best friendships are never completely out of reach, and almost always circle back.
Over the past few years, I’ve acquired some of my best friends yet, which goes to show that you never stop branching out. And that I absolutely need in my life a handful of women with whom I can laugh and cry, and entrust my deepest feelings. Their presence in my life is essential to my happiness and mental health, and I’d like to think they feel the same way about me.
Now that I’m thinking about all my potential Golden Girls, I’m not sure I’ll be able to narrow it down to just two. I may need to find a much bigger ranch house than the one shared by Dorothy, Rose and Blanche.
You know, God forbid I need it.
