Thursday, March 20, 2008

old friends

E,me and S

We were only in California for a few days and the main purpose of the trip was to spend time with family so Husband and i didn't attempt to call up everyone we know in the area to try to see them.
HOWEVER, I recently found a very good friend of mine from high school (E) on linkedin who lives in LA. i haven't seen her (or anyone I went to high school with for that matter) since I graduated so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to re-connect. As luck would have it, another mutual friend of ours (S) moved out there recently and she was able to join us as well.
At first as I was so excited to be meeting up with them, E and I were particularly tight through high school as I recall and I had been looking for her for years after we lost touch. (She has an extremely common name) Then suddenly as the day drew near i got a little trepidatious. What if we had nothing to talk about? What if we had changed so much we no longer got along?
Luckily as soon as E said Hi I knew I had been ridiculous. E has such an easy and engaging light manner Husband and I were both immediately at ease. It was definitely one of those situations where the many years that have passed since high school seemed to melt away and that we would be friends even if we just met that day.
I tried to forestall talking about the past as long as I could so as not to bore the crap out of Husband, but by the time S joined us we were well into that end of it. As I suspected, I remember very little of those days compared to these girls. Most likely because i have no one to talk about it with or remember it with so it's just gone.
On a recent "This American Life" episode, someone was talking about how valuable it can be to reconnect with someone you haven't seen for years because your memories of each other are frozen to that time period- and they will remember things about you that even you don't. It was so fun to exchange memories back and forth of each other's houses, each other's parents (Both E and S have lost their Father's recently) and what we all did together. The three hours we had flew by and it seemed so short when it ended.
We all agreed we should definitely meet again, hopefully in less than 10-14 years!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's amazing that with certain relationships it doesn't matter if you saw them an hour ago or a decade ago, you just pick-up as if there had been no separation.

alexis said...

does E still dance?? S, I don't remember S.

IT is truly a joy to still have those connections with people.

Lakeview Coffee Joe said...

That's why I love high school reunions!! Mucho fun. Even smaller reunions with just a few friends are fun.

One of my friends, a few years younger than me, has this fond memory of him and I doing stuff together and I have no recollection whatsoever. Very funny......and sad.