Yes I do have fictional friends. Since retirement, I have had more time to read – unfortunately when the book is intense, I find myself staying up to 3 a.m. to see what happens next. I enjoy books about friends, especially the kind of groups in Lorna Landvik’s Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons or Susan Kidd Monk’s The Secret Life of Bees. Check out The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs, a poignant tale about a woman’s club based on Manhattan’s upper West side, a club that does more gnoshing than knitting and whose members grow to support each other through many crises. A wonderful film The Station Agent is about the struggle to make friendships and allow friends into your life, to see your pain, to help you out.
These fictional friends have touched me deeply and reminded me how important friends have been throughout my life. In one difficult transition time after another, a friend – Jo, Arleen, Ann, Sr. Pat and so many others – showed up to walk with me through the pain.
I think of all these loving people as my own personal cheering squad. When the game is going my way, they celebrate with me. When the score is against me, they cheer me on, encouraging me not to lose heart. And vice versa.
Just like in the books and movies.
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