National Friendship Day? Are you kidding?

So apparently yesterday was National Friendship Day. A day proclaimed by Congress in 1935 to honor the importance of these relationships.

Seriously?

The first Sunday in August is a documented holiday to celebrate friendship. SO clearly you are off the hook for the rest of the year. Much like with birthday's and anniversary's, where the rest of the year can go by you only need one calendar day to pay attention to.

Unless of course, like me, you are named after a month. Then you get attention for an entire month, and along with it pointless jokes. "It's not April, it's June", "If you were born in September would your name have been September", or old men singing "April in Paris".

But I digress.

Its sad to me really, that they created a specific day for you to celebrate friendships. To me a friendship should be cherished daily, but then again, over the years I have noticed the changes that friendships have taken.

Those late night gossiping phone calls disappear. The frequency of all conversations generally cease. Sometimes the phone doesn't ring for days.

Oh sure some are still there, but not there anymore. It changes, its different. It morphs into this pseudo adult persona that we call a friendship still, but to me generally feels lacking a lot of the time.

There are spouses now, and children sure. And jobs, careers even. Things that take precedence over what was once an elementary school chum. Those friends who saw you through your first bad perm, your first zit, break-up, training bra.

You were in their weddings, at the births of their children. Yet still, as you grow older, some times the distance grow greater. There are some that are immune to this fate sure, and they are few and far between I can assure you. Those lucky enough to have those friends, THOSE are the people who should celebrate this holiday.

The friends that drop everything, even for a moment, to cheer you up on a bad day. Talk you down from those emotional ledges, even if they may not think you need to be on them. To hold your hair back when you throw up, whether its from chemotherapy or the cocktail flu.

The ones who no matter what, will leave their kids with a babysitter to sit with you in a hospital all night. The ones who put even your family first. THOSE are the ones who deserve this holiday.

Not those superficial ones who send you a Christmas card every year just to get one back. Not the ones who you grew apart from, even if you still remember the "good ole' days" fondly. The ones who you know secretly look down on you. Who disapprove of the choices you made in your life.

So what if you had a child out of wedlock. So what if you are a single mom living paycheck-to-paycheck. So what if you made bad decisions. You learned your lessons and you are a better person for them, a better friend. You learned to stand on your own to feet, learned to get back up when knocked down. And learned what a real friend looks like.

Learned who really deserves a holiday.