The Angels

This is about friends.  Real ones. This is not Chick Lit. These aren’t the friends you’ve had since childhood. These aren’t friends you met at college or the girlfriend of your husband's college roommate. These are the friends you made on your own. Not in Mommy and Me class, not a parent of a kid that is a friend of your kid. This is the real deal. The adults that you as an adult, have chosen. The call you can make in the middle of the night when a parent dies, when there has been an accident or when you just need a shoulder because you’re thisclose to losing it.

I consider myself to be very fortunate. I have a number of friends. Of good friends. I have a lot of what experts call, ‘functional friendships’, meaning that I have school friends, work friends, neighborhood friends and friends that are parents of kids on one of my kids sports teams. These are all good friends to have; everyone needs these friends and friendships. Many of those women are very close friends and would take the 2AM call.

Ready to fight crime. Obviously.

But, The Angels, well, they’re just more than that. They’re my people. My soul mates.  

The name, ‘The Angels’ started off as a bit of a joke. Our post-couple drinks traditional photo pose. A rip-off of Charlie’s Angels. And depending on which of our male friends you talk to we’re either ‘Rob’s Angels’ or ‘Keith’s Angels’. Maybe one day they’ll cage match it out and we’ll have a true winner. I’m hopeful for that scenario but skeptical. We’ve just shortened it to The Angels. And, really there isn’t anything very angelic about us. That’s what makes it funny and us fun.

On the surface it probably doesn’t look like we’d have a lot in common. One from New Jersey, one from California, one that moved a lot for parent job changes and one, me, who moved when her mother remarried and divorced and remarried. We’ve got five kids and six marriages between the four of us. Twelve years separates the youngest from the oldest. For two of us, in an odd twist of fate, our grandmothers were friends. Long before either of us existed. But somehow, we all ended up in the same place at the same time. Because we were supposed to.

Three of us bonded over work and morning walks to Starbucks, late night deadlines and difficult developers.

And our annual Valentine’s Day lunches.

A few years ago there were career shifts and one by one we left the company where three of us met.  Eventually, we all ended up together again - similar jobs, different place. And met our fourth. After over ten years of seeing each other almost every day, I got an offer for a more interesting job, closer to home for more money. And yet, I almost didn’t take it because I wouldn’t see The Angels as much. I told them each individually. And then later that night, alone, I cried.

We’ve bonded over coffee, wine, rum runners (now on the ‘never again’ list) and tattoos. We can communicate fully with an eye brow lift or eyelids closed for just a millisecond too long. Between the four of us we know the words to nearly every song and can have full conversations in lyrics. There have been a number of times where we've intentionally not made eye contact - lest we dissolve into laughter in an important meeting.

Basic words like: sand dollar, soup, asparagus or ovaries can send us into hysterical giggles. The kind where you can’t open your eyes and have to sit down.  Non-angels don’t get the jokes. Sometimes I feel bad about it but other times I’m glad they don’t ‘get it’. Our little private jokes and moments make our little circle special.

We all have friends. We all have best friends; we all have friends that will help us move. This is bigger. These are the friends that will move a body. And be an alibi.

This is loyalty and love mixed, shaken and poured out into a sugar rimmed martini glass.

Make it a double.

Held up. Literally and figuratively.