But I Smile Anyway…

We’re doing an amalgamation of posts here, today, with Spidey (with his newly spruced up graphic!), and Linda’s #JusJoJan, together!

Welcome to the daily prompt! Today is your eighth prompt for Just Jot it January 2023, and it’s brought to you by Jezzie. Thank you, Jezzie! Please be sure to visit Jezzie’s blog to read her post and say hello. And follow her while you’re there, if you’re not already.

Linda

Your prompt for JusJoJan January 8th 2023, is “friendship.” Use the word “friendship” any way you’d like. Have fun writing!

“True friends are always together in spirit.”

L.M. Montgomery

I count myself so lucky to be surrounded by friends in all aspects of my life.

Every day I work with a team of people who are more than colleagues. They see me and share the ups and downs of my life, as well as me doing the same with them. Honestly, I can’t call them colleagues when they are such good friends who sometimes know more about me than my family, and I feel blessed to have them.

I have my Tootie Frooties, too. A group of like-minded, similar-aged friends who have come together over the last few years. We are all British Indian, married, mums, working, and in need of people who are on the same wavelength! I found some of them as my closest friends.

I have my old friends, from way back, in school and at university, and some from past employment. We have less contact, but it is always wonderful to catch up at reunions whenever we get the chance.

I have my online friends, and again, I have many, many acquaintances, but I also have many real friends, some of whom I haven’t ever met, but our interactions over the years have built a bond so strong, we may as well have been meeting since childhood.

Then I have my best buddy.

A friendship that has lasted what will be thirty years come this September.

Nadia is the Buzz to my Woody.

We started an important chapter of our lives together. university days, when we were both tasting independence from our families, exploring the world of living out, going out, experimenting with all sorts (not bad, Mum, honestly!), and being sisters from other misters to one another.

We’ve experienced harrowing things together, including certain folk trying to prise our friendship apart, seeing as I am Sikh and she is Muslim.

Seriously, that is how petty some folk are, but we see beyond religion, and our hearts met and connected that first day of University when she would tell anyone who asked that I chatted her up at the mailboxes! I was only asking where they were, but still, it sparked a friendship that I treasure.

She’s seen me at my best, as well as at my worst. She’s the one who I know I can call on whenever. We don’t get to talk as much, and we haven’t seen each other for over three years due to Covid and life, but she’s that one who I can speak to after months, and we slip into conversations as if we had only been yakking the day before.

Cheers to a friendship that will never end.