One is silver, and the other Gold.
I remember this saying from when I was a child, and my best friend moved away. My mom tried to comfort me with this pithy saying. It didn't really work, but I did work at making new friends to fill the hole in my heart left by my first best friend. Making new friends has been a big part of my life as I've moved around many times as an adult. However, thanks to the wonders of technology I've had the pleasure of reconnecting with my "old" friends from days gone past: childhood and high school. What a sweet pleasure. Like savoring a delicious morsel of chocolate, or a good wine, visiting online and even in person with friends I've known since High School, Jr. High, and even Elementary School has been an incredible treat.
As I said in my last post, I love technology. Through the wonders of Facebook and email I have reconnected with a whole host of old friends, and kept in touch with new friends that I don't see anymore due to moving across the globe (5,000 miles from Alaska to VA). Each week Facebook reminds me that I went to high school with these other wonderful people, and wouldn't I like to be friends with them? Of course I would. The last time I was in touch with many of these friends we were like chrysalis: we had a shell around us to protect our developing persona from the harsh realities of life. Graduation was the chance for our butterfly form to escape from that shell. What sort of butterflies would we become? Would we be the same as adults that we were as children? Would life's adventures change us, and if so, how? What would life be like as we stretched our wings and took flight for the first time?
It's years later, and our wings are a little tired now. We have stories to tell, and some of us have war stories too. Some friends have spent time in Desert Storm, and some in the Iraq War, and a few in both. Some have been to Afghanistan, some have served in the Peace Corps. Some have become Doctors or nurses, lawyers or judges, or fabulous interior decorators to the stars. Some of us are married, some of us are married again. Many, but not all, of us have children. A few are grandparents. Some of us have moved around the country, and some have never left home. Several are openly gay. I am very proud to call them ALL my friends.
When we were in High School it was very clique-y. If you saw The Breakfast Club, you know what I mean. But those years apart as we spread our wings and made our own ways into the world have erased those stereotypes. We are all friends now with the common ties that bind of our collective soul of high school and thankfully time, and maybe a little booze, has erased some of those painful memories, like scars which fade with time. The shared joys and pains of adulthood bind us now.
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