Friends Are Like Old Closets

Collecting old colonial era closets in Tampa have been a small hobby of mine for some time now. One morning I decided to do some long overdue spring cleaning for my shop/apartment and while I was at it I also decided to go ahead with starting my long standing project of garage organization in Tampa. I really had all the luck in the world as this happened just as my friends from up north in New York were paying me a surprise visit. I was in the middle of studying complete with furrowed brows the intricate style of closet design in Tampa when my friends barged in the garage and started digging up and scattering all the stuff that was lying around.

All three started talking simultaneously.

"Hey stranger! What are you up to, eh?"

"Wow I didn't know you had a Murphy bed in Tampa!"

"Look at all these custom closets in Tampa! They are adorable! Only if they weren't so dusty! I think I am going to bring one back home to the apartment!"

I only had a surprised look on my face as I stared at the three. Sternly, I asked them what they were doing standing in my garage. Slowly a smile crept out of the corner of my lips and then everything was as if we were all back in college again. We all had a laugh over how surprising this all was. It was more than a couple of years since I moved away and sparse visits never made up for the distance that grew as time passed by. Like old closets, they have been taken for granted as they were just there all the time. You never looked at the fine intricate details that make up their personalities and define who they are. But once they are gone for a long while, like the closet I was studying earlier, they become new to you again despite the years you have spent together.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder indeed. All the memories came rushing back: all the trouble the four of us went through together, ups and downs, smiles and frowns, we stayed together through it all. We were inseparable. And now I am just beginning to realize how I missed my very best friends.

Smiling, I asked them, since they were here anyway, to help me out with my spring cleaning. I pointed out impishly that the mess wasn't going to clean itself. A long groan came out of my friends' lips as they acted out grudgingly dragged their shoes and slowly got about to cleaning.