Some Things Last Forever

Mid September I went home to grieve and show support for one of my oldest friends who lost her mother.  I went home to see Virginia and try to find words to say when there are no words that can make it better.  I’ve been pretty bad about keeping in touch with the group of girls that ended up there to support a family we grew up loving.  I hadn’t seen Virginia in months, hadn’t talked much to Brianne in the entire two years she lived in Colorado, hadn’t touched base with Kristen in ages.  And yet I never considered not going home that weekend.  Because there are some people who are always part of you.  Yes, there may be other friends who are more visible in my life in the moment, but part of how I act around them, part of almost every relationship I’ve built since them is built upon those first friendships that remain part of who I am.

I met Kristen in kindergarten, Brianne in first grade, and Virginia in sixth.   Ginny and I went to basketball camp and shared a seat squished together on the bus of away games after we went to Sheetz to get subs before the team left.  These girls tricked me into coming over to watch horror movies at Gin’s house and I watched Psycho before falling asleep before The Exorcist even started (thank you Jesus, that can only have been a miracle).  I have a vague memory of once painting letters on our stomachs for some unknowable reason since we never left her house that night, and being dared to eat dog food which made me want to throw up. 

There were adolescent fights, backyard bonfires, and elaborate dinner/killer English test study parties.  There were homecoming after parties and weird, three-legged rabbit pets. 

Now, today, we live in different places, though since Brianne has made it back to the east coast, things are a little easier to coordinate.  But it’s so much less about actual time and distance than it is about the ties that bind you to people.

Several people have told me lately that they think I’m brave—the way I’ve gone on a solitary writing retreat or flew out to California to teach for a few weeks.  Going to Yosemite without knowing anyone.  And maybe those are sort of brave things.  Certainly I wasn’t brave enough to do them five or ten years ago.   But these three women have never been among those who thought there was anything particularly special or daring about those actions.  These are the girls who encourage it, knowing how good those slightly scary experiences are, because they’ve had them as well.  These are the girls who taught me to be brave.  These are some of the first friends—certainly the longest-standing friends—and there’s something truly comforting about how totally accepted I am with them.

            I don’t know if everyone has this experience—certainly there are people who change tremendously between child and adulthood—but these women have known me through enough that I think it would be pretty hard to surprise them.  No matter how much you change, I think there is a part of you that remains the same, and if someone loves that deepest inner part of you, they see the career changes and long distances moves as the trappings they really are. 

If I am brave at all, if I willing to step outside my comfort zone, I owe that, at least in part, to the girls who—weirdly, now slightly ashamedly—were, and still remain, the Womanites.   Some things last forever, even in this world where everything must pass away.  So I went home to hug and try to show support to someone who can never be erased from my life—not even if I wanted it to be so.  I sought and didn’t find words that could comfort or ease her pain.  I hugged her tight, which was the only thing I had. 

Some things last forever.  Friendship, home, peace.  And love.