En Vino Veritas

I went out last night with two old friends of mine.  One I have known since 1st grade("J").  I've written about her here in the past.  We were always friends "around" each other, not so much "with" each other as kids.  My other friend was one of my best friends in high school that I had lost touch with immediately after graduation("T").  Ridiculous really, since we live only about 5 or 6 blocks away from each other, but that's how life goes sometimes.  Life, and school, and boyfriends and jobs and parties take over and you lose a few of the good ones in the cracks.  But if you're lucky, you get some back.

After many many glasses of wine and/or vodka&sodas, and beers, we all got into talking about the craziness that is female friendships and cliques, etc..  It was really interesting.  I wish that my memory wasn't so blurry.. because I believe it was a very poignant conversation... and one that more adult women should have.  I talked about the fact that I never had a "best friend" in grammar school.  I had my twin sister, but I never had another girl that was a friend who was all mine outside of my family.  I always wanted one, and was so jealous of the girls that had each other that way.  In retrospect, I feel more sorry for all the girls that grew up without a twin, or without any sister for that matter.  Cause at the end of the day, THEY are the first friends I want to call to talk to about the good the bad and the ugly.  I realize how lucky I am. 

J was talking about how she never had a best friend either, and  that it made her sad.  And she still thinks about it.  At 36 years old, she still thinks about and laments about that the same way I do.  She is beautiful.  She's a head turner.  Always has been.  But despite her looks, and her sweet disposition, she wasn't "granted" easy friendship either.  We talked about junior high.  She transferred into my Jr high in 7th grade..  I had transferred to public school in 4th, so we hadn't seen each other for 3 years by the time she came to my school.  She was immediately embraced by the glitter chicks.  The cool kids.  She never became like them though.  She remained quiet and reserved and nice.  She does not remember me or my sister from junior high at all.    I was surprised by this.  I remember the first day I saw her in the school, and the feeling of comfort, knowing that someone from my early childhood was coming to school there.... but to her, I wasn't even a blip on her radar.  Funny.  Perception is everything, isn't it?

With T, we talked about how close we were our freshman and sophomore years, and how that dropped off so suddenly and how that made us feel.  She was closer with my twin sister than me, but we were all pretty tight for awhile.  She was a gymnast back in the day.  A very competitive, Olympic hopefully when we were kids.  It was a very big part of her life.  I'd say the MAIN aspect of her life at the time. My sister and I played basketball and softball, I later became a cheerleader...  between all of our activities, we all just grew apart.  We still carpooled to school, but there was really no socializing afterwards.  Back then, I remember being sad about it, but also figured that she had her gymnast friends (who, according to her stories were waaaay more advanced than my sad self in the ways of boys and dating and all of that good stuff!)...   So I think at the time I assumed that she outgrew us.  And she was very serious about her training and wound up going to Northeastern University on a full athletic scholarship.   Well, as it turns out, she was just as upset about the loss of our friendship as  I was.  I'm not happy that she was sad, but I was really happy to hear how she valued our friendship that same way I did, and mourned the loss of it.

En Vino Veritas.  In wine is truth.

It was a good night with good girls.  I'm glad we drank too much.  Cause it made us talk too much.  And I think.... I +THINK+  they'd probably agree.  Really really happy to have them back.