Relationship versus friendship

After hearing a few remarks on my post yesterday and a quick re-read, I got to thinking. Most of my gazillions of two readers quite understandably took it as a little prose in celebration of an anniversary, which it is. The thing is, though, that it's a 'friend' anniversary, as opposed to a 'significant other' anniversary. This is what got me thinking.

In this day and age, where so many of us are not doing the nuclear family thing, it seems like a good idea to celebrate the friends that, essentially, are our families. Why the focus only on celebrating the anniversaries of 'significant others'?

While I realise it's just socially inbred in us to to take note and remember the date that we met/first kissed/first slept with our significant others (I love that everybody starts counting from different points. I, myself, have often blurred the edges of these so-called significant points in relationships, but that's another story, for another day...), why don't we do it with our friends?

The particular friend I was talking of and I met on another friend's birthday so, admittedly, it's an easy enough one to remember but I'm thinking, maybe, we should just celebrate them everyday - our friends. I know I'm blessed with a group of fabulous ones, the one mentioned yesterday, and others.

Essentially, the  little piece I wrote yesterday differs between our friends and our significant others - be they boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands or wives - only in the last sentence of the second paragragh, really. Someone who you feel like you've known forever, someone you will, now, know forever. Sadly, this often doesn't apply to the significant others. Hearts break, emotions get bruised, people part, and often the 'knowing forever' bit falls by the wayside. (Again, my history with this blurs... yet another story, for yet another day.)

I suppose that sometimes happens with friends, too. Writing this has reminded me what a lucky girl I am. Here's to fabulous friends. And more shared homemade chocolate ice cream. Hell, let's throw in a glass of champagne too. Or a bottle.