Girl's Gone Child: "Be your own best friend"

I never liked those "Best Friends Forever" necklaces. Probably because I never wore one. I never had a best friend when I was little but I knew a lot of girls who did - girls who wore their half of the heart with the words "Be Fri For" or "st ends ever." I envied them. And also felt a little hurt not to be included. Everyone was paired up except for me, I thought.

Which is why I was disappointed at first to see that the rainbow necklace I had eyed from afar while shopping for Fable's pajamas, was actually a pair of BFFs.

I couldn't possibly buy it for her.

Until I realized of course I could. I had to.

Fable regularly offers the following advice to Archer, me, Hal when we are having a rough day:

"Remembew. You'we youw own best fwend," she says.

It's a stock answer that has been said so many times and at so many points that it's the first thought I have to offer others who are struggling. It's the first thought I offer myself.

"Be your own best friend, self."

I didn't think this way when I was five. I thought being a lone wolf (which I was) was something to be ashamed of. Surely I had to be a failure of a friend to have no BFF to call my own. Fable is nothing like I was at her age. She is friends with everyone, always has been. She was born a friend. To animals and people, flowers but especially herself.

And that self love has been the greatest influence on my own.

I surprised Fable with the BFF necklace after school the other day and she surprised me when she asked me who she should give the other half of the rainbow to.

"Yourself. Both sides are for you."

Her eyes went big, epiphany style.

"Because I'm my own best friend?"

"Totally."