Old Friends
Childhood friends have reappeared this week. One contacted me, out of the blue, after more than 20 years. We had not parted well. I did not especially like her husband. Sensed he did not like me. Maybe I was unfair, maybe I was wrong. Certainly I did not like sharing her, or being put firmly second.
Al these years I thought she knew where to find me.
Hearing her voice felt like being 10 again. The years fell away in a startling manner. We cannot jump on our bikes and ride to the beach. Never again will I take those roads with her, to sit in the hot sand, and talk about parents, and boys. And now, I am adjacent, online, with faces and voices of women and men who have aged alongside me, just out of my sight. It is unnerving. I feel deeply now, the things I have not done, the way my life will seem dull to those who look.
And there are things and people we have all lost, of course. Things and people that did not do as we had planned. We are all old enough to be kindly about all that. And we select what we tell. It is like cropping a photo, so the inevitable debris is out of sight.
But my life feels small to me, and I am a bit ashamed.
Al these years I thought she knew where to find me.
Hearing her voice felt like being 10 again. The years fell away in a startling manner. We cannot jump on our bikes and ride to the beach. Never again will I take those roads with her, to sit in the hot sand, and talk about parents, and boys. And now, I am adjacent, online, with faces and voices of women and men who have aged alongside me, just out of my sight. It is unnerving. I feel deeply now, the things I have not done, the way my life will seem dull to those who look.
And there are things and people we have all lost, of course. Things and people that did not do as we had planned. We are all old enough to be kindly about all that. And we select what we tell. It is like cropping a photo, so the inevitable debris is out of sight.
But my life feels small to me, and I am a bit ashamed.