Make New Friends

Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver, the other is gold.

A circle is round, it has no end.
That's how long, I will be your friend.

A fire burns bright, it warms the heart.
We've been friends, from the very start.

You have one hand, I have the other.
Put them together, We have each other.

Silver is precious, Gold is too.
I am precious, and so are you.

You help me, and I'll help you
and together we will see it through.

Your MatchGirl has been spending a lot of time thinking, gentle readers. To those of you who know me, you will know that this is par for the course. I have always spent a lot of time in my own head, with my own thoughts. But my thinking lately has been more focused. I think on the job hunt. I think on the fact that it has been nearly a year since my lay off and I am not sure what is to come. I think, a lot, on the fact (especially as my birthday - a few weeks away - approaches) about how this is not the place I thought I would be in my mid-30s.

Tomorrow, your MatchGirl has some friends coming into town - old friends whom she has not seen in probably six years. They live across the country, in a city I love but rarely get to. But they are old friends. And, at a certain point in my life, they were dear friends. And I am very excited to see them and catch up.

Their visit, coupled with the impending end of a year being unemployed, has gotten me thinking, though, about friendship. About cycles. About the past year. About the song (above) I learned, at 6 years old, in Brownie Girl Scouts.

While over the past year I have lived frugally on my unemployment check, while I have had not luck finding employment, while I have been frustrated and hurt by men, I have also been a lucky girl. Because it's in one's bad times that one really has a chance to gain some perspective on their life, their friendships and on what is truly important. Not only have my old friends, my core Brooklyn peeps, been truly there for me when I needed a helping hand, a shoulder or a cocktail, but I have made some truly amazing new friends - people who I would not have met had I not been laid off, started this blog and then gotten a little press about it. And, for that, gentle readers, I am truly thankful.

Through new friends in our adulthood, we learn about ourselves. People who have known us forever, know us. They see us inside out. They see us, probably, the way we remember ourselves and maybe in ways that we don't want to look at ourselves. New friends, however, give us a little perspective. They open our eyes to things about ourselves that maybe those who have known us a long time don't notice or forget, or maybe even parts of ourselves that we didn't know were there.

So, while I may not find a job any time soon, and while the men in my life may continue to disappoint, I am grateful for, and inspired by, the people I have been lucky enough to meet during my time of unemployment.

And that, my dear readers, is definitely the silver lining to this very grey cloud of a year.