I hope I’m using both hands
It’s one of those gentle memories that doesn’t have a beginning. I really can’t recall the exact
time in life when we declared a friendship. Maybe it was middle school. It’s a mystery to me, really.
She’s one of those people who feel like they’ve been a part of my skin for all of my life, and yet there are chunks of time when she was not visibly there — and yet she was.
I think I know that she wore braces when we met. I do remember that she ate bacon on grilled
cheese sandwiches. That was something I’d never heard of before. She was skinny and often quiet.
She had beautiful clothes and lots of shoes. And when she laughed, she laughed all over the place.
She still laughs that way. And that makes her incredible.
She spent some time with my son when he was a chubby toddler with blonde curls. She attended my wedding. But oddly, I don’t remember calling her a few years later when my life fell apart. I’m not sure why I didn’t call. It certainly wasn’t because I didn’t think she would listen. Sometimes through the years, I think we exchanged Christmas cards. But we both had a span of difficult years there, where we lived in bubbles that never inertwined.
At our recent 30-year class reunion, I happily noticed how she and I climbed right back into yesterday, as if we never missed big, long paragraphs of each other’s lives. We were two comfortable sweatshirts from 30 years ago, an exact fit, no airs.
We could openly talk about our dreams.
We didn’t feel embarrassed about tear-rimmed eyes when we spoke of our pain along the way.
We are truly women now, staring at the fringes of 50, knowing who we are, probably better than ever.
I have lots more wrinkles than she does and my hair is more gray. She has no back fat, no cellulite, in fact, she looks just like she did all those years ago. It’s amazing to me, how she held up so well and weathered the storms of life.
I, on the other hand, did not fair as well.
But that’s OK.
Sometimes, age has to teach us about some of life’s best gifts. And now that I’m 48 years
old, age has taught me that true friends have a unique, unexplainable value. True friends sprinkle yesterday with clarity. A friendship like ours is a salve for pain and turmoil. You can’t find that treasure of acceptance and unconditional love from even your family, sometimes.
Not long ago, I read a quote that made me cry. It simply said, “Hold true friends with both hands.”
As soon as I read that, I instantly thought of my dear friend, Jill, and how much she means to me.
And how much I will try, from now until I leave the planet, to hold onto our friendship with both hands.
