photo credit: Simon HowdenRemember that song? My kids learned it in kindergarten. The song asks us to make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other gold. What if the old friends are also the new friends?
I found myself asking this question all day Tuesday and into Wednesday. My family loaded up the car and hurtled from Tulsa toward Pittsburgh, PA (City of Champions). Since this trip is over 1000 miles, we stop on the way to presevere parental sanity and some semblance of routine; usually we stay at a hotel with a pool. But this year, after reconnecting on Facebook with a long lost friend whose home was almost a midway point, we planned to stay with her.
My emotions jiggled inside me; I was nervous, excited, anxious, giggly, happy and curious. I met Kristin when I was 19 years old, almost 20 years ago. We had an intense friendship over several years of college and wrote and spoke regularly. Then we graduated, married, had babies and lost touch. I wondered during our drive to her house what seeing her again would be like.
I knew the big chunks: kids, marriage, struggles, the usual. But did she still love music? What was her husband like? How about her kids? Would we have anything to talk about? Would my husband feel totally out of place?
Turns out, Kristin, like me, is different than she was all those years ago. And strikingly the same. Thoughtful, intelligent, deliberate and kind. I honestly can't remember what drew me to her in the first place, but I do know what draws me to her now. So I find myself with a brand new old friendship. One that I hope will grow.
I love being your old friend and your new friend, all at once. I loved spending time with you again, after so many years. And I was so charmed, for some reason, that you wanted to write your own post, unfiltered, before reading mine about this same experience. Somehow, that has something to do with what I like so much about you. I'll have to get back to you on what it means, exactly, though. :)
ReplyDelete