Vintage Friends

We wear vintage clothes and drive vintage cars.  We decorate with vintage furniture.  Vintage is a word used a lot these days, but I bet most don’t know the actual definition. 

Vintage: of, relating to, or denoting wine of high quality; the year or place in which wine, esp. wine of high quality, was produced; an unusually superior wine

I’ve never been a wine connoisseur.  I don’t know what year, aroma or finish are best.  I only recently learned the difference between a red and white wine glass.  But as I looked at this definition, I kept thinking of the adage, “like a fine wine, it gets better with time.”  I don’t know vintage wine.  But I do know vintage girlfriends.

I mention my friends Hope and Brandy so often that people who have never met them feel like they know them.  They are so much a part of me that when we are together, you can’t tell where one of us ends and the other begins.  People have told us for years that our friendship is special.  The older I get, the more I understand what those people mean.  Ours is a sisterhood of high quality, unusually superior.

The limited knowledge I do have of wine is that there is a direct correlation between the quality and age of the wine.  The longer it has been able to ferment, the better it is.  That is the secret to this cherished friendship of mine.  I have known Hope longer than I have known myself.  Our lives have been intertwined since we were 11 years old.  And Brandy…Brandy has known me longer than I’ve known myself.  At 14, when you feel like nothing around you is consistent, I found a friend who (on the inside) was my identical twin.  I struggle to describe the depth of our friendship to anyone who doesn’t know us collectively.  (Because together, we are an entity in its own right.)  The truth is, rare things can’t readily be described.  That’s what makes them great. 

There are a million websites dedicated to wine.  They compare, contrast, rate and rank.  But each site has a similar disclaimer somewhere within.  They all recognize that taste is subjective so the only way to truly understand and appreciate good wine is to taste for one’s self. 

Girlfriends are the same.  I may not be able to objectively explain, but I know one thing for sure.  I pray daily that Brynna and her godsisters, MacKenzie, Nia, Nala, Hannah and Zoe meet a vintage friend of their own.  I pray each girl finds a friend who knows her so well that as she discovers who she is inside, her sister is there – loving, encouraging, supporting and strengthening her every step of the way.  Year after year.  Season after season.  I pray she finds a friend of high quality, unusually superior.