I’m havin’ a great day. I just reconnected with an “old friend” I haven’t spoken to in a long while and as is often the case, we picked up right where we left off like no time had passed! Sure we’ve kept up over the years via Facebook. We’ve watched each other’s kids grow up and have been there in spirit for special moments shared through pictures and the occasional post. But to hear her voice and especially her laugh, now that takes me back. I knew I missed her but I had no idea how much I missed the way she makes me feel.
Ours is a friendship forged iron strong through shared hardship the summer before tenth grade. You see, in our hometown there are two social clubs for teenage girls. High school sororities our mothers belonged to back in the 1960s that continue still to this day. I heard they were started as “service organizations” once upon a time…I can tell you that my personal experience was in no way altruistic! It went something like this: being hazed (awful), being initiated (scary as hell), and then several years of super fun partying with my “sisters.” Wait, one time we went to the old folks’ home and sang Christmas carols. So, there was that. But you get the gist.
This friend and I first met at a gathering for new sorority members during the summer of 1987. I vividly recall looking around the room at the sea of faces as I walked in and realizing with rising panic that I din’t know anybody. Not. One. Person. It was fight or flight. That’s when she caught my eye and invited me to sit with her. Although we’ve never talked about it, I know she must have been crazy nervous that day as well, but she sensed my angst and put me at ease. She’s always been special that way. An old soul.
We would go on to share many firsts during our high school years. First boyfriends and first heartbreaks, first cars and first restrictions, first drinks and first hangovers. Our friendship has always been about building each other up. We’ve had our disagreements but we have never competed with one another. We are different but the same. And that is why we will always, always be friends.
Flash forward through high school, college, first jobs, weddings, and babies…and today we find ourselves the mothers of teenage girls who are roughly the same age as we were that summer we first met. I’ve been blessed with some incredible friendships across the years, but no one holds my heart or knows the “real me” better than she. I often joke that I am not interested in making any new friends. The hectic pace of life these days makes it hard to keep up with the amazing girlfriends I already have. But reconnecting with an “old friend” is different. It’s rediscovering a piece of yourself.
Don’t over think it. Just pick up the phone and call her!
PS In honor of my friend, I’m posting the album cover from Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. She knows why. xx
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