{"id":198,"date":"2011-05-12T21:29:10","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T01:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=198"},"modified":"2011-05-12T21:31:31","modified_gmt":"2011-05-13T01:31:31","slug":"bffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/05\/bffs.html","title":{"rendered":"BFFs ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I don\u2019t remember when I first heard the term \u2018BFF\u2019, or learned what it meant. I do know I had a visceral recognition: I knew \u2013 immediately \u2013 who my BFF was. Actually, who they<\/em> were.<\/p>\n

I have the BFF I can tell anything \u2013 good, bad, indifferent. I can bore her w\/ my newest shopping purchase. Ask her advice when I\u2019m worried about my marriage. Tell her I feel dumpy, and hear her admonish me ~ \u201cYou\u2019re not dumpy!\u201d<\/p>\n

I have a BFF who is part of my spiritual journey. I\u2019m a better person for her example (a good one :)). She drags me (sometimes digging in my heels like a mulish two-year-old) into doing things that are good for me: a writing group, reading a book on kindness, teaching with more research base.<\/p>\n

I have a BFF who teaches me about love. \"\"<\/a>I love her dearly, although she doesn\u2019t believe me. How can she, when she \u2018knows\u2019 she\u2019s not loveable\u2026?<\/p>\n

And of course I have my sisters ~ the BFFs I’ve relied on in the 11 moves we made between kindergarten and my senior year. Always someone to play with, sing with, yell at and to. And they still are. \ud83d\ude42 And my mother and her sisters — and my grandmother and her<\/em> sisters.Three generations of sisters, each friends with the others.<\/p>\n

So when religions talk about your \u2018spiritual community\u2019 \u2013 the church, the sangha<\/em> \u2013 I think of my BFFs. When I worry I am impatient (I often am), when I obsess over my procrastination (deadly), I think: \u201cOh well. At least ____ [insert name of any BFF here] loves me.<\/em>\u201d It\u2019s kind of like when I first realised my husband loves me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I was only 19, and as dysfunctional as that implies: self-absorbed, immature, but full of\u00a0 the \u2018passionate intensity\u2019 that animated so many Boomer kids. And I confess: it still lurks just beneath the polished veneer of professional adulthood\u2026 But the idea that someone so wonderful could love me? I think it saved me from the despair that crushed so many of my idealistic friends.<\/p>\n

Now?\u00a0 Same thing. When you have BFFs, you\u2019re never alone. Even when you have very bad news — as one of mine heard this week — a BFF is there to hold you close. You can enter the restaurant crying and cry all the way through lunch and into dessert and still know you’re loved. Or, if you’re the BFF trying to comfort, you can know that sometimes there just isn’t<\/em> anything good to say. Sometimes all you have to offer is yourself. Big hugs, warm hands\u00a0 and reassurance: things may change (sometimes for the worse :(), but you’re not going anywhere.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t remember when I first heard the term \u2018BFF\u2019, or learned what it meant. I do know I had a visceral recognition: I knew \u2013 immediately \u2013 who my BFF was. Actually, who they were. I have the BFF I can tell anything \u2013 good, bad, indifferent. I can bore her w\/ my newest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,6],"tags":[11,1189,1181],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bff","category-britton-gildersleeve","tag-beginners-heart","tag-bff","tag-britton-gildersleeve"],"yoast_head":"\nBFFs ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I don\u2019t remember when I first heard the term \u2018BFF\u2019, or learned what it meant. 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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