Sunday, October 26, 2008

Some Things Never Change



I returned home a few hours ago from a week-end get away at a quaint cottage in the woods with my best friend from high school and our husbands. The saying "some things never change" was very much a part of my week-end experience.

My friend, Shirley, and I have only occasionally gotten together over the last 37 years. We were both married young, I moved away from our hometown, we raised our kids and had active lives in different communities. Last year, Shirley and I decided we needed to get together and reconnect for longer than a brief fly-by visit when I'd be in my hometown to see family. Since October of last year, we have had three week-end get aways that have all seemed like no time has passed since high school and college.

The greatest unchanging quality of my time with Shirley is our ability to laugh at everything. It doesn't matter what it may be about, we seem to stimulate each other's talent for seeing the humor in everything. Although we have always been different in the personality department...Shirley is quiet and prefers privacy and I'm outgoing looking for connections, there has been a bond that is hard to describe between us.

Maybe it is because we shared our deepest selves with one another at a very vulnerable time of our lives. We shared complete trust. We saw each others strengths and encouraged each other to see them too. We had the ability to find humor in everything, which would heal the wounds from the challenging times and make the good times even better.

Without being able to fully describe the "why" of our longstanding friendship, I completely appreciate what "is" in our friendship by the way I feel. It feels like time has not passed, even though our lives have changed dramatically. It feels safe. It feels unconditionally loving. It feels true.

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