I had dinner with my friends Melissa and Jen last night at Jen’s house.
Melissa is a good friend from high school who has moved away to Boonytown, IL after getting married a few years ago. She’s out in the sunny and tornado-free CA for a week to visit her family and friends. So it was good to see her.
It was also wonderful to Jen after all these years.
You see, Jen was my best friend from high school through college. We were tight. I went with her family on a road trip to visit her relatives in Texas for Christmas. I spent the summer living in their house while taking GE classes at Saddleback College. They were my family.
I say “was” because we “broke up” about 5 years ago. Over something entirely stupid. Jen also had a fall out with Melissa shortly before that, and pretty much disappeared from our lives.
Each year, I would write her a letter to try to get the feelings out. I did want to patch things up but I didn’t have the guts to pick up the phone. Besides, as y’all have seen here I do better in written words. My letters had said that now that we are grown women, perhaps we could put everything behind and start over, and get to know each other all over again.
Well, her family moved, and apparently the letters were lost. Until last year when my high school alumni association patched my letter through to her that Jen received my letter. She popped by my website and we started emailing all over again.
This was the second meeting for Jen and Mel since last year I bailed out on having brunch with them. Although we didn’t quite get back to where we were years ago, things did fall into place last night. I mean, we went right back to chat about life and what everyone’s been doing. We hopped and skipped down memory lane, and talked about what we’re all doing now.
It wasn’t like we bare our souls to each other already, but it wasn’t 100% awkward either. Yes, it’s still a bit awkward, like hanging out with a new friend. In a way, it was like hanging out with a new friend.
Jen has grown. And so have I. Most things are still the same but we have 5 years of not knowing each other. It’ll take time before we all go back to the place where we were before. We may get there, or may come very close to getting there. But nonetheless, I can proudly say that of all the relationships I may have destroyed in my life, I manage to revive one.
And that, my friend, is a good thing.