The Value of Girl Talk

Over the weekend, I got to catch up with one of my best girls one-on-one. Hot Mommy, as I like to call her, and I decided spur of the moment to meet at her house for a pizza & movie night. The movie part never happened...we got caught up in "girl talk." The next thing we knew it was almost midnight and we'd covered everything from relationships to politics to religion to friendships to careers to self-knowledge and back again.

I've known the Hot Mommy since she was a 19 year old non-mommy and we were both lowly hostesses at TGIFridays. We've been famous for our nearly life-changing convos ever since. Maybe it's because we're coming from similar life experiences. Maybe it's because we've been there to see each other's essential transformation into the people we are today. Whatever the reason, I leave those intensive conversations enjoying the emotional recharge that comes from spilling your guts and knowing that the other person totally got it.

By the end of the night, a theme had emerged. We've known each other a long time. Life has developed in ways we could never have expected. But the beauty of change is its power to transform us if we let it.

Creating Ritual

B. and I have decided to celebrate Chanukkah this year, so I spent the morning yesterday shopping online for menorahs. My favorite were the sketchy ones on eBay that didn't actually have the required 8 candleholders. There were also traditional, modern, and artsy ones to choose from, and even a Waterford crystal one if you want to drop $300. Let's just say I was a little overwhelmed by all the choices.

The idea of creating rituals with significant others and loved ones has come up quite frequently lately. I think it's a part of growing up and putting down roots to want to create meaningful traditions with the ones you love.

A dear friend wrote a piece about this subject for one of her American Studies classes. I wish there was a link for you to read it because it was beautifully written (Publish it, J.!!!). She wrote of deciding in what ways to observe her cultural traditions in the family she's creating with her fiance and how our generation differs from the previous one in that many of us buy the cultural symbols (usually the grandest and most expensive) that the previous generation had passed down to them from their families. As I recall it, the piece essentially questioned whether rituals mean more when they are passed down from generation to generation or when we co-op them in ways that are meaningful to us personally. I think this is especially true when people come from different backgrounds. I am interested in knowing the basis of the original traditions, but I love the idea of blending the elements that mean the most to both of us to create our own unique celebrations.

Another friend recently told me how much she wants to build traditions with her group of friends. She said that since she isn't that close to her family of origin, she considers her friends and their significant others to be the family that she has chosen for herself. She wants to build holiday traditions and annual vacations with us. We are planning to begin this year with a week-early Thanksgiving dinner together. I love the idea that one day our families will spend the week sharing condos on the beach or going skiing together in the winter. "Family" takes on a lot of different forms, and I'm excited to share that label with her.

As it turns out, B.'s family has a spare menorah for us to use. Neither of us will be home at sundown on the 4th to light the first candle, but I think we'll find our own way to commemorate those 8 days. I'm just excited we get to spend another holiday together.

Reunion

*Disclaimer--I've had one too many glasses of wine...

Tonight I got to have dinner with a very old friend. The nostalgia of sitting around the table with everyone, drinking, catching up, laughing was almost too much. Some things never change. Some friends will always remember when. Some hazel eyes will always make your heart beat funny. Some times life changes but the relationships stay the same. It was the happiest two hours of the week so far. Let's do it again and not wait 3 years.

Something I Couldn't Live Without

I'm addicted to NPR. I love all the in-depth interviews and quirky stories. But, my favorite show is Monday's This I Believe. There's something about listening to others articulate what they believe this life is all about that disquiets and intrigues me. Probably because at this point in my life, I don't think I could answer that question with just one concise answer. There are so many ideas that shape how I choose to live. Maybe "Giving". But who knows. That might be another blog...

Yesterday's piece by David Greenberger especially stayed with me (read it). He was writing about the value of his friendships with the elderly, but this phrase from the middle of his essay seemed universal:

"That's part of the wonder of relationships: Anything that happened before we knew each other is slightly mysterious. It's only the present we can know. And a conversation in the present is given shape by the lifetime of events and ideas that preceded it. There's no need to go fishing for the past; it will make itself known."

That mystery is always before us. I've teasingly asked "new" friends, "So, do you think we would have been friends if we'd met in high school?" It's almost impossible to imagine the shadowy me from the past mixing in an unknown world with this other person's past self. It, too, surfaces in the climax of romantic yearning that wishes we'd known each other always, that there was no life before us. We search for the stories that will illuminate the person in front of us, when all the while the essence of those stories will emerge simply through knowing the other person in this moment. It's a nice idea, to accept someone just as they are now, not who they might have been before or who you'd like them to be.

I found this piece so touching because the idea of appreciating a person for who he/she is has been on my mind a lot lately. Everyone has a self-constructed mental picture of who you are. Or who you should be. I don't like shoulds. The surest way to make me do the opposite is tell me I should do something. There was a time when I was less sure of myself, more pliable. You don't like my hair? I'll change it. You think I'm too reserved? I can fix that. But not anymore. I'm not good at being anything other than myself, flaws and all. Maybe I swear too frequently, maybe I have too many tattoos, maybe I'm too opinionated, maybe I'm too stubborn. But, if I'm okay with it, you have to be, too. Love it or leave it.

The best friendships, though, are the ones who see you even more clearly than you see yourself. My friend Melissa is one of those people. Saturday evening, we were talking about a relationship that will never happen because the other person wants me to be everything but who I am. The fierceness of her response was breathtaking. "I hate that!" she said, "You have worked too hard to be the person you are. You've evolved into this really beautiful amazing person, and it makes me angry to think someone doesn't appreciate that." I was taken aback. We've known each other for seven years now, and I suppose in that time, I have spent significant amounts of time coming to terms with who I am and who I want to be. What was amazing is that we've shared that journey together and recognize its value. This girl has come miles since I first met her, too. Obstacles have presented themselves for her more than the average person, but she's surpassed every one of them and come back for more. She's learned that if she's made it this far there's nothing she can't do. I get fired up the same way when I feel like she's not getting her due. I equate that fire with true friendship.

I'm a (semi-)social person; I have lots and lots of acquaintances and sorta friends. Some friends whose mettle has never been tried. I've had "best" friends who have screwed me over or fallen off the face of the earth into their own lives. Whatever. It happens. Looking back at friendships that have faded or ceased to exist, it was hard to tell at the time which ones would survive and which ones would fail. Sometimes you can't tell when you are in the middle of something that it's a convenience thing, not a meaningful friendship.

But what counts is this: I've also got a handful of friends who I know will be there when the shit hits the fan. No matter what. The people who would get out of bed to come pick me up if my car breaks down. The people who have listened to me cry over a broken heart. The people who wouldn't leave my side if I were really really sick. These are friends who have stood by each other when members of the group have come out, gotten pregnant unexpectedly, or experienced profound loss. No judgement, no I-told-you-so's, no unsolicited advice, just unconditional friendship.

It's easy to get wrapped up in myself and the little world I've created for myself. But something I want to work on this year is acknowledging how much those core people mean to me. So little else in life matters. Hmmm...maybe that's another "this I believe" for me.

Somewhere in Middle America

I remember reading somewhere, back when I was young and impressionable, that writers often have "complicated relationships" with the places they grew up. I remembered thinking, "I don't think it's that complicated...I hate it here!"

"Here" was a tiny town, middle of a cornfield, Illinois, population 500. We had one no-name grocery store, one small cafe that closed before dinner time most nights, one gas station with two pumps, five churches, and zero stop lights. If you blinked driving through, you'd miss it. Unless you got pulled over by our one and only cop. Although if you'd driven through town before, you knew to look for the patrol car in his driveway at the outskirts of town. If it was there, no need to drive 30 on the way through.

Time stood still there. Mullets and pouffy bangs were, and still may be, the height of fashion. Kids played outside after dark in the summertime. People left for the weekend without locking their front doors. The movie theater (20 minutes away, mind you) took at least an extra week to get most new releases. Popular high school electives included shop, agriculture, and home economics, except for the parochial school I attended where there weren't any electives at all. Driving an hour to get to clothing stores better than Wal-Mart was a way of life. A happening Friday night included driving to the next town over and "cruising" a mutually designated set of blocks and finally parking in McDonald's parking lot to talk, flirt, whatever. Escape was imminent in my mind the whole time.

The thing I miss most, that I sometimes don't realize until I'm with them, is (some of) the people. I graduated with seven people (no, that's not a typo, seven people). And this weekend, four of us got together. There had been three years between the last time we had all been in the same room at the same time. It's always funny to see people who knew you way back when. When I think of us, I often remember us the way we were, little things, like how Amy painted her perfect fingernails in the school colors before big games, how Becky tore the crusts off her sandwiches at every lunch period, how as chem lab partners, Michelle and I narrowly escaped an explosion practically every week. I remember the parties, the little rebellions, the inside jokes. But in the intervening years, we had gone from main characters in the dramas of each other's lives to occasional guest stars.

But none of that mattered. I loved every minute of the few hours we spent together. It's true; we lead radically different lives, from where we live, to our career paths, our relationships, and even our values. But on another level, we are the same. We've turned out to be even better versions of the girls we've always been. It seems to me to be a rare thing for friends to be able to grow and change and still accept each other as they are now. There's something beautiful about the people who know your true past, not the revised version of history distorted by time and distance. And there's something even more amazing about friendships that transcend the past and continue into the present, when so many others don't.

We parted with heartfelt hugs and promises to meet again soon. And I honestly hope we do. They are the best thing about where I grew up. While I drove back to my life, back to the city that I still don't refer to as "home," I decided that coming of age isn't the day when you strike out on your own from the place that you grew up. It's the day you discover the road that leads you back and forth between the two places.