Out of town.
It was my turn to take her.
Early on a Saturday morning.
About an hour away.
The location? My high school alma mater.
When I first pulled up to the school (my old high school that is), I noticed how different the campus looked. It has changed a lot with a lot of updates and new buildings. I mean, it has been 24 years.
The funny thing is when I walked into the main hallway and then the gym, memories flooded back. I am not sure much else has changed in those two areasother than there are a LOT more "class pictures" hanging on the wall. And I felt really old. :)
I had so many thoughts running through my mind. In fact, I have a whole other post I can't wait to write about some of those thoughts.
But that is not what this post is about.
A couple days prior to the tournament, I e-mailed one of my close high school friends. I hesitate to use BFF or bestie...I honestly don't like those terms. I think they are kind of exclusive and could be hurtful. And it wasn't just one of us. Several of us (mainly our church youth group) spent hours together every weekend. But even within that group, she was definitely one of my closest high school friends.
The next day I received an e-mail response from her.
Her son had a basketball game at our old high school Saturday...right around the same time!
I was quite excited.
We have visited over the years but not nearly enough. We always say we will see each other more often but then time flies, and the next thing we know it has been four years. We keep up some through e-mail but that is fairly sporadic too. However, she is a dear friend I know I can always count on. When we do get together, it is like we just saw each other yesterday. We just pick up where we left off.
Anyway, I was watching my daughter play and suddenly had this smiling face before me.
She was there.
My friend.
We had several opportunities (between her son's game and my daughter's game) to visit.
And like I said, we just picked up where we left off.
What struck me though was our conversation.
Honestly, in looks, she looks very much like the young girl I stood by after graduation for photos. And other than a few wrinkles around my eyes, I look fairly the same too.
Sitting there with her on the bleachers, I remembered our high school conversations.
Talks about cute boys.
About plans for our weekend.
About classmate drama.
About teachers and homework.
About her involvement in drama, mine in...hmmm, what was I involved in?
About family, parents, rules, and consequences.
About life and insecurity and curiosity about our futures.
So fast forward 24 years.
And we are on the bleachers talking.
Talking about our hubbies (both cute boys :).
Our children.
The challenges of parenting.
Our parents and siblings and friends we wonder about.
About church and faith and God.
About who we are and who we want to be.
About life, love, and loss.
It just felt ironic to me.
Our lives had come full circle.
Where we had once chattered about that mysterious "future" for us we now chattered about where we have been and where we are.
Life is so different now. For both of us.
I would imagine we would both say we are blessed beyond measure.
That our lives are better than ANYTHING we ever could have imagined.
And that no matter what, God has been there with both of us, each step of the way.
Neither one of us would travel back in time if given the chance.
We both enjoyed those days, those carefree days, but they are part of our past. Not something we want to revisit.
Though things have changed in 24 years (the campus, the styles, our lives), some things don't change.
The picture at the top? A gift from my friend.
We often bought bags of pistachios at the mall, eating them while drinking NON-alcoholic strawberry daiquiris (which is how I still prefer to drink them) and watching movies on the weekend.
24 years later, she still remembers. She still knows me well.
And I still love pistachios. I eat a handful every day.
That hasn't changed.
Nor has the gift of friendship God gave me so many years ago.
Reba
No comments:
Post a Comment
Sweet Words of Wisdom