The Next Booth

There is something restorative about spending time with the people who knew you way back when.  It feels bolstering in a deeply foundational way and is a little like when you are driving around lost and all of a sudden you’re on a familiar road.  You have that sense of, oh, I know where I am now.  I can find my way back home from here. 

I met up with some friends from high school today – women I graduated with 43 years ago and who I haven’t seen in a little over a year. It was a beautiful fall day and the gorgeous scenery added to the anticipated pleasure of arriving in a warm familiar place.  We were meeting for lunch in the town we grew up in, and as I drove there I thought back over the passage of years and mused about the collective wisdom we had gained, both intentional and in spite of ourselves. We are friends that don’t meet up in every season, sometimes missing all four seasons consecutively for a few years, until life slows down and the stars align and we find a restaurant that can accommodate a five hour lunch where we still only scratch the surface of who and where we are now.

Within our conversations is a lot of laughter and easy acceptance because these are not people who are still sizing you up. You don’t need to hustle for your spot.  Long ago we gave each other a seat at our table, and no matter how long it’s been, there is always a chair for us there.  We know each other’s history, so whether a story starts in the middle, or with what happened yesterday, we know the road and the signposts that led to whatever chapter you start at. We champion each other and offer humour and understanding because even though our journeys have been different, joy and pain, love and loss, victories and mistakes, are familiar to each of us.  We marvel at our 15-18 year old selves and the plans we had.  We were ten feet tall and bulletproof like all kids that age, but I thank God for the boldness and audacity we possessed then, and I’m grateful that our parents’ attempts to squash it, failed. It is the very thing that has sustained us through choices that led to happiness and to heartache.  It has helped us navigate marriage, parenthood, divorce, inlaws, illness, careers, coworkers, grief,  loss and parents with Alzheimer’s disease. Between us we have been through many of life’s challenges and we have the receipts. 

We settle in and cover the, Oh, I didn’t know that, and the, oh me too! and the, I always wish I could haves and the, did you ever…?  We update each other on our kids and grandkids and resurrect the stories that led to private jokes that have survived the years. We make no attempts at keeping up with, or competing with anybody. We like and forgive ourselves more fully now than ever. We have reached that lovely stage written about in the poem, Comes the Dawn attributed to both Veronica Shoffstall and author Jorge Luis Borges, “…And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child and you learn to build all your roads on today…”  In this late season of life, scorched and singed by life’s flames, we accept our charred bits but realize we’re more like perfectly toasted marshmallows – touched by fire so that you see the effects on the outside, but the inside is so much better than before.  These friends are a treasure to me.  I look at their faces and see the youthful beauty made more beautiful by all we have shared, learned, loved and overcome.

If we’re lucky, we have siblings or cousins who hold our stories and share our history.  If we’re really lucky, we have a few friends who do so too.  They are the friends who became friends for a reason, a season and a lifetime.  

Near the end of our lunch we happened to notice two women about our mother’s ages at the booth opposite us, all white hair and cardigans and earnest conversation. My friend laughed and said, that will be us the next time we get together…only there is one of us missing.  We all laughed, but it’s a sobering thought. I wondered if anyone was missing and whose story was with them there in that booth, safe, valued and mourned by those who are left.  We can make new friends but we can’t replace the ones who knew what the house we grew up in looked like, and who remember how scary your dad could be, and how fun grad night was, and were the ones with you when you went to Peter Frampton and Elton John concerts, and who knew how beautifully your mom played the piano.  We need to hold those ones close.

It might be next month or three years from now when we manage to meet in that next booth.  We might have given up the hair dye by then and just let our hair go white, and we might match our cardigan to our orthotic runners. But in that booth will always be an affirmation of who you were, the embracing of who you’ve been, and true delight in the story you’re still telling.