The Aerie
I've been feeling pretty glum lately about my friends. Two of them are
moving away: one is a friend of several years, off to find a new
career in California; the other s a brand new acquaintance who
unexpectedly announced her intention to head to New York.
I won't go into my misgivings about their plans: I can't separate my
own distress at their departure from a reasoned analysis of their
strategies. But having friends move away just plain sucks.
But I life hands out as many ups as downs, and last night I got a big
"up":
An e-mail from Bonnie!
Bonnie was a senior when I was a freshman in high school, and I'd only
been living in Minnesota 18 months. We had study hall together and
rode the late bus home after activities. She was brilliant and pretty
and had lustrous red hair... but most of all, she was kind to me.
A senior in this strange town who treated me kindly. I remembered her
fondly for years.
And using my mad Internet skilz I tried to find her many times. But
women are so hard to track, they move and marry and change their
names. So I kept an eye on Classmates.com and periodically threw a
Google search, but never came up with anything.
And so she found me!
In a long message, which she addressed to several of us from St.
Francis, she recounted memories, mostly with the others: she'd had a
crush on my friend Tim (Hey, I never said she had TASTE ;-> ) She
never got to go to prom. And a self-described good-girl, her first
date with Richie, a long-haired rock-n-roller.
Then at the end of this long message, she wrote:
"I'll bet you thought I forgot about you Bob. Nope, I saved the best
for last! It is nice to see you still have your great sense of humor!
You have always been so talented and funny! You are so good with the
camera and have turned into a web site guru too, neat! I sure laughed
a lot when you were around!"
Stop it! I'm blushing!
Seriously though, it was quite a lift getting that message. It means a
lot to me to learn that other people have been thinking of me. I
suppose I believe that when people aren't around me they don't ever
think about me.
But I'm going to have to reconsider that self-pitying notion. When I
re-contacted my friends from grade school in Queens, I discovered that
stories about our shared childhood adventures had become family
legend. During their extended-family get-together, their spouses would
say, "So YOU'RE the kid from across the street."
And last year my old girlfriend took the initiative to reach out and
bridge the gap that had resulted from our breakup. Since then she was
very supportive during my father's decline and death. Not to mention
offering to employ her cool computerized embroidery machine!
Maybe one of these days I'll come to understand that I've been as
important to some of the people in my life as they have been to me.
Meanwhile, well, the lessons are fairly pleasant, like Bonnie's
e-mail.
In it she mentioned that she's hoping we can all get together over the
4th of July weekend for a mini reunion. I hope it happens, I wouldn't
miss it for the world!
Can't wait!
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Posted by Albatross at June 8, 2003 12:00 AM