Saturday, July 9, 2011

Old Friends

Spent the day with my family and friends that I haven't seen in what feels like a lifetime or more.  Some of them have children grown enough to not remember me, some of them look totally different then when we last spoke and still others haven't shifted in any way.  That amazes me.

Most people who weren't expecting to see me looked genuinely surprised.  They said Hello but then did the double take "Hello!" immediately after.  I hope its because I looked so good that they didn't know it was me.....or maybe they just never thought they'd see me there.  Either way, they were shocked.

Funny how time passes and life passes and a year can slip so quickly for some of us and crawl by so painfully for others.  I felt the loss of one friend just as sharply as ever, the empty seat where she should have been like a beacon to me, pulsing her absence, glaring in my face.  I saw her family, raw still and wounded from losing her.  I am happy to have seen each of their loved faces and held them in my arms, even just for a moment, but the loss of her was like a terrible bitter taste in my throat, strong and burning making breathing difficult and filling my eyes with tears. Its almost been a year. It feels like no time has passed at all without her. I'm still holding my breath, waiting for her to sit down.

Most of all I was with my family, my whole family, together under one roof...as it should be, as I have wanted it to be for a very long time.  The only one missing was Dennis, since he was abandoned by me back in Florida (for further guilty confessions on this subject please see the previous blog entry)

The empty seat next to me was a reminder of the fact that my life and the me I am in my life now has changed in a year too.  Dennis is my life now and even being with all these people I love and miss, without him there is no home.  I am home in location but Dennis is where I hang my hat.  Its a seemingly obvious conclusion to many, I'm sure....but a reassuring one to me nonetheless.   Missing my husband is a good thing in my eyes.

I feel exhausted from the day, all tattered around the edges but not in a negative way.  I feel spent and satisified that I was able to connect with so many people from the pages of my memories.  Especially some toward whom I had given up for lost, scratched them off completely whenever they entered my thoughts.  I am happy to see their faces again and share a laugh with them, as if we saw each other only yesterday.  I have missed them and being in their company again, falling into the old ways with them again was so natural and so right.  Easy....as if nothing has changed.  In a spinning world of change, an island of something constant has a nice feeling to it.

Old friends...old friends..sat on their park bench like bookends....

can you imagine us years from today..sharing a park bench quietly

how terribly strange to be seventy......

time it was and what a time it was it was

a time of innocence, a time of confidences

long ago it must be, I have a photograph

preserve your memories, they're all that's left you