I had a very friendly, very reassuring, very much needed convo with a girlfriend today. One which was long overdue. One which made me realize that I am no longer who I used to be. Good? Bad? Who knows. Whatever.
This friend (Dee) and I, used to work together and ran with the same circle of friends for the last few months that I lived in CA. I won’t be able to do much justice to what I’m trying to articulate here, FYI. Back then, I was just different. Just different. In every way. For better, for worse. Different.
I sat on this call as she described the last several months of her life, and when it was my turn I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to show her how much I’d changed. Not because I was ashamed or anything like that, I just couldn’t verbalize it. But maybe also, a small part of me wants her to remember me as I was before. Before all of these changes took me by storm. Before I became a mom, and a housewife, and a person who feels lost in a place where she knows she shouldn’t be, canning peaches and baking pies, and doing all of the things that suburban wives ‘should’ do. Should, ha!
For 45 minutes she said names which I hadn’t said out loud for a year. Names of people who used to mean so much to me in my every day life. People who defined me. They defined me, yet for a year, I hadn’t even thought about them. And I felt guilty, but also sad. Not sad because these people had forgotten about me too, and I was now just a teeny little speck of a memory to them. That doesn’t bug me so much. Sad because I didn’t even get to say goodbye to them. It’s like a funeral without a dead body. But what now? Should I call them and be like, “So, um… me and Dee were talking about you and you were mad at me and I didn’t know and that really sucked, you should’ve told me! But that’s all gravy, whatevs. I just wanted to say thanks for the memories and I hope you have a good life, because you deserve it.” That would be weird and a little crazy, but really I just want a chance to tell these people how much they meant to me at some juncture in my life, probably the phase in my life that made me grow up. You know, the important one.
I felt a teeny tiny little panic attack coming on as she was saying goodbye. I didn’t want to stop hearing about all of these wonderful and wonderfully awful people, but also, I didn’t want to be sitting on my couch alone while old friends were living it up, and all I had was a peach tart on my kitchen counter and 20 cans of peaches in my pantry to show for my day’s work.
My panic attack was very mild in comparison to the ones that used to come on daily and at full force while I was training for The Disney Travel Co. (ya’ll can google it, I’m too lazy to link), but still I hadn’t felt that in over a year. It was unnerving, and I didn’t want them to come back. Ever.
After I hung up, I noticed that I had two missed texts on my phone. They were from my neighbor. Two separate neighbors. And then two seconds later I got a chat invite from @youlikeashley. And the first thing I said was, “I’m so very happy to hear from you!” Because I was, and I wanted her to know that.
It went away, the panic attack. And I’m happy to be here, with my cans of peaches and all, with a wonderful albeit small group of people around me. A group that I found by myself, a group that has stuck around during the most hormonal phase in my life thus far.
After all that, I have a feeling they’ll stick around.
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