On Friendship

(Note: I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why this is publishing in HUGE type. Sorry. My apologies.)

Friendships have been on my mind lately. This is largely due to the visit we had this week, from friends we have not seen in ten years (minus one short visit about 8 years ago that didn’t last longer than 20 minutes.)

This is them, then and now:

A couple of years back, Anna found us online, with the help of My Space. I will admit, that I was a bit apprehensive, at first, to reacquaint myself with someone who I hadn’t talked to in years. So much had changed in my life since then: family, career, location, outlook. Would we have anything in common? Would we still be friends, now that our responsibility-free, adventurous, not-a-care-in-the-world, college lifestyle was behind us? Was this a friendship I wanted to pursue?

The short answer, would be yes. We now both have families. We have careers. We have husbands (who were friends too, 10 years ago). We have house payments, and junk to clean out of our carports, and have wiped puke/pee/poop off of ourselves probably more times than we wish to count. We make supper. We do the dishes. We worry about the future for our country, our children, ourselves. Our blood boils at the mention of Sarah Palin. We now eat steak. We have many things in common.

But the truth is, we really didn’t have to have all of that in common, to be friends. We have differences too. Different lives, different outlooks, different tastes, different zip codes. None of it really matters, because we’re friends. Whatever apprehension I had to opening up a past chapter in my life was unnecessary, because I wasn’t opening a past chapter -- I was starting to write a new one.

We’ve now spent more of our lives, being friends over the Internet, than we ever had in person. The few short months that she lived down the dorm hall from me have long-since past. Now 12 hours separates us on a daily basis. But, if you ask me, we’re better friends than ever. We’re closer than ever.

And in many ways, our friendship is better, because we now have more of ourselves to share with each other; we can now share our families. I had forgotten how much fun it was to talk to Roy. I had forgotten that before he became Anna’s husband, he was my friend, and my would-be husband’s friend too. And now my children are developing a friendship with them too. From dancing in the living room with Lauryn, to working on homework with Owen, my kids fell in love with these new friends. Of course little Sophie was entertainment for all – adults and children alike. I can barely wait for the day when these kids can all meet again, when their friendships will continue to grow.

This week, I started to think of all the excuses I’ve made for why so many of my friendships have failed, why I have fallen out of touch, why I have not kept in touch with so many of the people I have known in past lives. They’re all valid excuses. I moved 1000 miles away. They moved across an ocean. I don’t have their phone number. We had a fight. We disagree on politics and religion. We’re busy. Maybe they’re not all so valid. Why is it, that one of the closest friends I have ever had, lives only a few miles away… and it has been 6 months since I have seen her?

So, if anything, my visit with these friends has been a reminder, a wake-up call. Don’t let friendships fall apart. Don’t let people fade away. Don’t let miles, or differences, or ages get in the way of friendships.

Today my mother told me that next month, an old friend will be at an event I am attending. She is probably my oldest friend. We have pictures of us together in diapers. Our friendship parted in elementary school when I moved away. Although we attended college together, we did not rekindle our friendship there. We spoke from time to time, we exchanged nods, and waves and glances. I don’t really imagine that we will restart a friendship in a few weeks, when we will see each other again. But if nothing else, I go into the meeting with a new perspective, a new outlook, a new willingness to accept the friendship as what it is, and welcome wherever it goes… even if that is only 15 minutes of conversation over a zweiback or cup of coffee.

As I look back on the short time we had together with Anna and Roy, I am horrified that I did not take more pictures while they were here. Bad Rachel. The time we had was so short, and so jam-packed, I feel like we never even had a chance to finish a single conversation… we went from talking about tattoos, to tearing spinach, to changing a dirty diaper, to trying to find the factors of 136, to dancing to Thriller … and then they were gone. Had we had a month straight, I still think the time would have been too short. I guess we’ll just have to start planning a trip to Kentucky.

Thanks for taking the time to visit, guys. Really. We won't let it be ten more years... see you again soon.