C & S Mommy

Monday, July 21, 2008

An interesting thing happened on my way home from Pennsylvania...

I was somewhat upset over the fact that I felt my friends did not recognize me for who I have become – so very different from the angry, aggressive girl I was in college. A fact I was hard pressed to prove after having an argument with my husband minutes after insisting I was not confrontational.

A little history: I met Beth and Jaime (roommates) on my first day of college. I lived on one end of the hall and they lived on the other. We met during our first hall meeting. Sitting on the floor in the hallway I perked up when Beth said she was from Long Island and then Jaime said New Jersey. Kindred spirits based on geography. I spent a lot of time in their room talking, listening to music, hanging out, avoiding my roommate. It has been 12 years since that first day of college. Twelve years since the year we spent supporting each other through break-ups, crushes, hang overs, freak outs, studying crises, parties, disappointments, milestones. The most incongruous part of our friendship is that we only spent that one year together. The next year Beth went to a different school, Jaime was paired with a random girl as a roommate, I moved out of the dorms and shortly after dropped out and moved back home.

Nancy and I had a little less history at first. She started out as Beth’s friend. I spent that whole first year being completely intimidated by her. She was always so cool and well…together. Something I so wasn’t. She and I made a better connection when she moved to NC and we started spending time together. I hate that I missed out on that first year when we were at school but things worked out anyway.

So here I am driving home 12 years later from my girlie weekend with the only girls who have ever consistently been my friends. I spent part of the drive wondering why they couldn’t see how different I was. Then somewhere between West Virginia and Virginia I fell into that fugue state of driving – completely aware of the road and the car but my mind flying back behind me somewhere far in the past. I could spend all day writing about the things I remembered with Jaime and Beth – falling into each other with relief after making it home from the Dancehall Crashers show in Philly in the snow; convincing Jaime not to steal the apple from random old guy Bill’s house; driving home for Thanksgiving (or maybe it was Christmas) with Beth, her dad, and her brother hung over beyond reason… So many things I hadn’t thought about in years. It was then I realized I wasn’t the only way who had changed and maybe they weren’t the only ones not recognizing those changes. These girls have always fulfilled the things I needed at any point in my life. Even now I can go to Jaime when I feel especially crazy and she will always make me feel better, I can call Nancy when I am concerned about Cecilia’s behavior and she will calm me down, Beth is the one I can always turn to when I need a more laid back spin on things. I don’t think I needed an eight hour drive to remind me that I am lucky to have these girls in my life. I already knew that. I think I needed that eight hours of distance to remind me how important it is to not worry how I am being viewed and bask in the fact that I have three people (and by extension of marriage maybe even three more) who love me and care about me just because.