"Constant Use has not Worn Thin the Fabric of their Friendship"

Music makes me too introspective. Sometimes I wish I liked Britney Spears or The Feeling or some other insipid pop trash that I could just stick on and not think about anything. Instead I end up feeling like Roberta Flak as Elliott Smith sings my life. Perhaps acceptable when I was an angst-ridden teenager, but as an adult I should probably stop listening to such misery. It's not fair to say that I love miserable music, I just love emotive music - and most of the good emotive music just happens to be extraordinarily sad. And of course, all music is about me and my life. All of it. The reason I am loving Elliott so much right now is because so much of his stuff is about loneliness, feeling isolated in a room full of people. It is a feeling I have always known pretty well, usually because I am good at alienating myself. But there is nothing to highlight loneliness like seeing old friends and saying goodbye to them.

I have probably rambled before about my lack of close friends in Belfast. Goodness knows poor M (Can I name him from here? From this point on my husband will be known as Max) hears enough of it. It's partly a cultural problem, really. Showing emotion is bit of a cultural faux-pas in Northern Ireland, as is being tactile. Given the fact that I hug and kiss everyone to say hello, spoon with my best friend when we share a bed, and cope with problems by talking about them - I run the risk of being a real pariah here! It doesn't help that people in Belfast have always lived in Belfast. They have the same friends they have had since they were 6 years old. They don't need new friends. New drinking buddies are OK. New people are also good to fill out a party or have the occasional coffee with. But in terms of those "call them in the middle of the night because it just can't wait til morning" friends, they have enough of those. So do I, frankly. They just live in other countries. It bothers me sometimes, but after 5 years I am getting pretty used to it and don't let it get to me. Then my girls showed up.

I met Catherine and Colleen in Washington DC. We worked together in the same bar where I met my husband. Catherine was a career waitress at the time. Sharp tongued, sarcastic and no-nonsense would be the words that people would most often use to describe her. I would have to add total softy to that list, along with loyal as hell. Catherine is the friend you call when you have been feeling sorry for yourself for too long and need a good kick in the ass. She is also great for getting completely hammered and laughing uncontrollably for hours at a time. Then Colleen arrived. She was doing her masters in forensic science when we first met. To look at her you might think she is about 14 years old. She is only 5ft tall (even she wears heels I am nearly two heads taller than her) and looks like the Campbell's soup kid, but she swears like a sailor and loves to talk about brains and guts. She can change a tire unaided, cook anything without a recipe, speak three languages fluently and makes/alters most of her clothes. She is, in my eyes, the ideal woman. Strong, independent, intelligent and talented; funny, soft, open and compassionate. At the height of our friendship Colleen and I spoke at least 5 times a day, and I would have never hesitated to pick up the phone at 3am if I needed her. We refer to our friendship back then as "the time we were dating" and the period when we both met our husbands as "the time we broke up." Colleen and I have so many inside jokes that people hate being around us, as so much of the conversation is made up of nonsensical phrases like that muffin made my woman parts hurt followed by obnoxious laughter/snorting. The two of them were the first girlfriends I had where there was no catty competition or gossip, and I never experienced honesty and loyalty from women in such a way. One of my other close friends, Haley, is wonderful - but I am essentially her babysitter. With Catherine and Colleen it's always been a two way street.

Fate is a funny thing, and all three of us have ended up with Irish men (I suppose the fact that we were pretty much the only Americans working in an Irish bar helped things along). Colleen moved to Wicklow with her husband last year, only 3.5 hours drive from Belfast. Catherine followed her boy to London in January (although he dumped her just before her arrival and she is now doing her Masters degree alone in a foreign city). In spite of their recent proximity, we have not been in very good touch. Much like myself when I moved to Ireland, Catherine and Colleen are struggling to settle in. Things and people from home are simply reminders of what they are missing, and so not often welcome. Colleen is very proud, and it is clear that she is having trouble coping with her situation and doesn't want me to see it. The result has been me chomping at the bit to see them, but not really getting to do so. But last week I got them both at the same time! I was almost nervous, it had been so long.

My nerves were unfounded.

When I picked Colleen up at the train station we practically ran to each other, arms open, like those cheesy films with the couple running through a field of dandelions. We talked constantly for two hours, barely pausing for breath. Catherine arrived and there were more hugs and exclamations of "look at you" and "tell me everything!" Suddenly my worries about having no real plans and leaving them bored were replaced with how we were going to cram everything in to one night. Where I had thought it was a problem that I could not round enough people up for going out on a weeknight before, I was now overcome with the urge to cancel all plans so I wouldn't have to share these women with anyone else.

We went for dinner in a tapas bar and a four hour meal ensued, eating at a leisurely pace and drinking at a slightly less leisurely one. We talked about our families, our friends in Washington, our days working in the bar together. We talked about women in international development and the Presidential race, we talked about the time Catherine absent-mindedly packed her vibrator in her carry-on luggage before a trip abroad. We laughed so hard that my sides and face hurt, and other patrons of the restaurant began to stare. It was wonderful, and it was as if we had never been apart. When we finally managed to stumble home we all piled into one double bed and snuggled as we spent all night talking some more. I had almost forgotten how much I loved these women, maybe I had done so for my own sanity.

The next morning we had breakfast and I took them both back to the train station. I said goodbye quickly, like pulling off a band-aid. Max said I was almost cold, and he worried that Colleen and Catherine might think I wanted them to leave. When I got home and Max went to work I wrapped myself in a blanket and had a good cry. Some of the tears were those of relief. Relief that I had not lost the relationships I had thought time and distance deteriorated, relief that I was still capable of being the overly-emotional, affectionate, sometimes crude woman I was when I moved to Ireland. Some of the tears were joyful, leftover happiness and excitement from the night before. And some of the tears, the really painful ones, were the ones that came when I recognised just how much I have been missing - and what I am going to continue to miss.

Fortunately I had one of Elliott's more hopeful songs to get me through.