• Posted By Crazy Single Mom @ 8:01 PM • • •
Monday, August 15, 2005
Old Friends.....
I had a phone call the other night, from a long time friend of mine. We call each other occasionally, never as much as we would like, but we both have busy lives. She lives very far away, and we haven't seen each other in YEARS...However, that doesn't seem to make a difference in our friendship. When that phone rings, either on my end or hers, we are instantly together, in the kitchen drinking coffee and talking. Not really, but that's how it feels. The years and the distance don't seem to matter. I've known her since highschool, and we have certainly seen each other at our best...And our worst. All this goes through my mind each time we talk, along with an overwhelming feeling of missing her. I wish we COULD sit in the kitchen with coffee, I wish we could play cards with wine, by the way we are both cutthroat with cards, we play to win and we play for blood, but in the end we are still friends no matter who wins. I wish she was next door so we could kibitz about our lives and our children. But the phone calls help, it keeps us connected. I was married twice, the first time to a man whom she dated for a short while, when she dumped him I should have gotten wise and stayed away, neither of us knew his potential to be a nightmare. The second marriage I'm not too sure she knew him well, but she was there during that time too. She was married once before her current marriage, to a man who is good, but wanted and demanded that she be someone whom she isn't. I have been there with my first marriage, so I knew the symptoms. I'm not sure if any of my advise helped her find herself again, but she did, got divorced, met a nice man, and moved away. I've missed her since. Not just because she has been a part of my life for so long, although that is part of it. I don't have a lot of friends that I can say date back that far. There is one I have known even longer, since we were very young, and when I go back to my home town, I still see her. I feel though, that if that friend and I were closer, we would still be long time friends who see each other occasionally. With this other friend with the phone calls, I feel that if we were closer, we would be much more than that. Don't get me wrong, I have met many wonderful people since then, many of them in my life now, my roommate being one of them, but there is something about my phone call friend that is different. The last time she called, she told me about another friend of mine whom I don't keep in touch with anymore. This friend was wonderful, and I still have a pain in my heart because we aren't friends anymore. But I always had to stick up for her to my other friends, tell them that she really DID have a heart of gold it just didn't always show. You see she was a bit caustic. After a while, I got worn down, and tired of the energy she took. My phone friend, told me about one of her friends who is very much like my caustic friend. She told me "I found a (caustic friends name) but I have never found another Nina. I too have never found another friend like her. We are not at all alike, we aren't even the same age. She is much smarter than I, I think I am a bit more street wise than her. We both have ditzy tendencies. But for all the differences, we work, we fit as friends. She has two wonderful kids, twins, one of which has some problems which she and her husband are doing all that they can for, even over the phone you can feel the love in that household. She had a child a long time ago, back when we were both young and our skin was firm, which she gave up for adoption. I know that has pained her for years, but she did the right thing. She is a much better mom now than she would have been then. It was an open adoption, and she recently contacted her child's mother, and she wrote back, there will be a meeting soon, I hope it comes out well. I don't think the daughter is looking for her to be a mom, nor is she looking for another child. They just want to know. I as an adopted child know why they want to, even if it isn't apparent to any of you. When I think of my phone friend I get a sense of nostalgia along with longing that we were closer, but I love that our friendship is still strong despite the years and the distance.
Here's to good friends, wherever they are, here's to memories of all of them, even the ones we have lost. It can be bittersweet at times, but to close oneself off from friends, is to stop living. Live well, and keep your friends close, no matter the distance.
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