I often have surreal moments when I sit across from my best friend and her son over coffee. The people in my life are there for a reason. Always. The ones that have sharp influence on my life, really help to change and transform me, sometimes only stay for a short while, others who seem to have been around for everything stay. Each are wonderful and important and each are unique. She has been through it all, thick and thin. She has been there for moments of quick turn arounds and drawn out evolutions. At some point we started off in the same place and no matter how different our lives seem we always come back to it. We lead parallel lives on different paths... often at different speeds.
What is surreal about it all is that I look at her and I see a childhood best friend. I see the young woman that i learned how to drive standard with, that I watched Crossroads and ate twizzlers on the couch with when we broke up with high school boyfriends. And boyfriends after that. Nothing has changed except that I also see in her how different her life is than mine in these moments and how, in so many other ways it isn't. How we both wonder what to do with our education. Where will we live? How will we let go of where we came from? I also see how she is truly meant to be a mother and how her son loves her beyond words. He is also four months so he can't really use words, but that's beyond the point. Sometimes I am startled at how far life has brought us from when we used to sit at Starbucks on 17th guessing where we would be in 10 years, who would be the first to marry, where we would work, what we would do. 10 years later and we got most of it wrong. For the better.
Funny enough I was lucky to have dinner with another old friend tonight. One who the ease of familiarity comes back quickly. It was a stark reminder of how much has happened in the last two years. All the people who became the ones that I call when I'm in town or the ones who have drifted out of touch. All the nights out, all the stretchy pants, then when it all changed. It is so mysterious, who stays part of our lives and who doesn't. I have realized how picky I am and maybe it is because I am lazy, likely it is because I crave space and time to myself. I don't necessarily mean to pick the ones I do but perhaps that's the point. Maybe friends are more like family that we think and they pick us, we don't get to chose who comes into our lives and how long they stay. At least not 100%. That being said I am ever grateful for all of them. It is those around me who inspire me and teach me. The ones far away and the ones just down the street.
What is surreal about it all is that I look at her and I see a childhood best friend. I see the young woman that i learned how to drive standard with, that I watched Crossroads and ate twizzlers on the couch with when we broke up with high school boyfriends. And boyfriends after that. Nothing has changed except that I also see in her how different her life is than mine in these moments and how, in so many other ways it isn't. How we both wonder what to do with our education. Where will we live? How will we let go of where we came from? I also see how she is truly meant to be a mother and how her son loves her beyond words. He is also four months so he can't really use words, but that's beyond the point. Sometimes I am startled at how far life has brought us from when we used to sit at Starbucks on 17th guessing where we would be in 10 years, who would be the first to marry, where we would work, what we would do. 10 years later and we got most of it wrong. For the better.
Funny enough I was lucky to have dinner with another old friend tonight. One who the ease of familiarity comes back quickly. It was a stark reminder of how much has happened in the last two years. All the people who became the ones that I call when I'm in town or the ones who have drifted out of touch. All the nights out, all the stretchy pants, then when it all changed. It is so mysterious, who stays part of our lives and who doesn't. I have realized how picky I am and maybe it is because I am lazy, likely it is because I crave space and time to myself. I don't necessarily mean to pick the ones I do but perhaps that's the point. Maybe friends are more like family that we think and they pick us, we don't get to chose who comes into our lives and how long they stay. At least not 100%. That being said I am ever grateful for all of them. It is those around me who inspire me and teach me. The ones far away and the ones just down the street.
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