Reconnecting With an Old Friend...

Of all the many treasures I've collected in my life, none has given me more joy than that of the prodigal friend, returned.

When I met her as a young girl, I felt as though I had been freed from a lifetime of chains. She cured my days of tedium with a whisper, "Let's be friends". And friends, we were. The best of friends to be precise.

Our summers were spent experimenting with a variety of muses. New wines, hijacked from our parents’ liquor cabinets, new foods in restaurants we could not afford, new places to spread our blanket and look at the nothing.

We were unapologetically un-elegant. It felt good to just be ourselves, without the hellacious screen of heirs put on for the others. The others who tormented us just long enough for us to form ugly calluses on our hearts and retreat.

Just us, together. Even the smoke rings from my cigarettes seemed prettier against the backdrop of her lovely face. I remember it vividly because I watched intently time and again as they formed soft tendrils that seemed to hang onto her extra long lashes. I loved her so.

The year we both became licensed, we would drive and drive, to no particular destination. It didn't matter; as long as Joni Mitchell was crooning, reminding us to "Have another round for the bright red gavel who keeps us in this tourist town". At the top of our lungs, we agreed with Joni. I supposed we had more rounds than we could count. And in that tourist town, we stayed. That Toyota must’ve taken us a million miles that summer, yet we never left our city.

We had three perfect years of friendship. Three summers, three Christmases, three first-days-of-school. Occasionally, we would try on new friends. Some were ok - they'd fit in well enough. But the jealousy would inevitably fester inside of me. No one could be my friend's friend. How dare they? They couldn’t get her to sing along when Janis Joplin reminded us that, “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose”. Funny, I thought I was as free as Janis. Alas, I indeed had everything to lose.

She left for a life much more exciting than mine. The nightlife looked so beautiful on her. She blended in with the cool kids so easily. She was effortlessly interesting.

My “apocalypse was fab”, as Tori Amos reminded me, “for a girl who couldn’t choose between the shower or a bath”. I guess I chose the tedium, for old time’s sake. I also kept the ugly calluses.

Then, one day, out of the blue, it was her voice on the other side of the phone. My heart raced faster than that old Toyota in our summer of freedom. I could finally hear music again, only now it was softer and more lovely. I didn’t require the callus to sing it, either. I only required my friend’s ear on the other side of the telephone. “I’ve been looking so long at these pictures of you, that I almost believe that they’re real”, I sang to her, reminding her how much we once loved The Cure’s most romantic ballad. It quickly became a beautiful harmony.

A million lifetimes have passed since I’ve seen my friend. Children have been born, and then grown. Wrinkles have replaced our young, plump dimples. Our stories are more different than similar, but there are some similarities - in the tragedies, mostly. For days we relived our youth in stories and memories. How lovely to press “Play”, on the soundtrack of our lives. In the catching up, I realized that I had never let her go.

Reconnection: One of life's many blessings. “Let’s be friends”, she whispered once again. And friends, we are.