This has been a really tough week for me. And no, not just because it’s been busy. And no, not because I had to deal with not one, but two jerk-y lawyers (the one is getting her own blog post over the weekend). But there’s been a lot of “stuff” going on.
Other, bigger stuff.
I’ve been thinking about my younger brother, who is in the Navy. He is out to sea. His son turns one on Monday. He’ll miss his son’s first birthday.
I’ve been thinking about my older brother. His wife, my sister-in-law, had to be rushed to hospital earlier in the week after passing out, she is home resting now.
I’ve been thinking about my parents, who have been subjected to Hurricane Ophelia now for a number of days. Today, it was finally better and mom says the clean up will begin tomorrow.
And then I’ve been thinking about my own family. We have a crisis, of sorts, of our own that we’re dealing with.
So, all in all, it’s not been the best week.
And I was sad that I couldn’t talk to my friend about it – the one that I’m growing apart from.
But a funny thing happened. My good friend, Michelle, who I have known for, gosh, over 15 years now, reminded me that not all friendships fade away. She sent me a lovely email this week and has helped talk me through a rather difficult time.
The thing is, Michelle and I could not be much more different. Our backgrounds are wildly different – even though we grew up about a half an hour away from each other. We chose totally different paths. She has no kids. She lives near DC (which, cough, cough, would drive me nuts). She wears far too much pink for my taste. She’s a vegetarian. I know those last two don’t sound like they match, but that’s Michelle.
I was thinking about it last night. How different we are, that is. And it reminded me that friendship isn’t about choosing the same paths or making the same decisions. But it is about sharing the same values.
And Michelle? Over the years, we’ve witnessed a lot of firsts. A lot of meaningful firsts. And we’ve both changed a lot – especially the year that she and I both lived in England. That year changed us both profoundly. And then we moved to different cities – me to Philly and she to Norfolk to go to school. We both struggled through paying the bills, neither of us come from money. We whined about bad relationships and terrible jobs. We compared dysfunctions in our families (she wins). We each got married to entirely different kinds of men and under entirely different circumstances (she was in my church wedding, she called to tell me about hers at City Hall).
Through it all, though we’ve changed a lot, our friendship has remained constant. And I guess that’s what I didn’t hold onto when I blogged earlier about people changing. People will always change. And that’s not a bad thing. I need to remember that.
