The One Where I Fake Incredulous

Yesterday, my oldest friend in the world (not that of all my friends she is literally the oldest, but our friendship is the oldest) left me a voicemail announcing that she is having a baby girl; I will be having a niece at the end of August.  She and her husband have gone through a lot to have this baby.  And I’m thrilled for them, and to once again be an aunty.

But there’s a part of me that just can’t believe it.  This is the same girl who bounced over to my group of friends at the first dance at our new high school.  We came from the tiny parochial school and knew hardly anyone.  She came from the big public junior high, and somehow had met my friends.  As high school progressed, I was pulled away from the Catholic school kids, but she and I quickly became, and stayed, best friends.

So when I think of her, I can’t help but see the girl who bounced over that September and the following Monday, in science class said “I’m Erin, by the way.”  This is the same girl I had sleepovers with, where we watched cheesey movies and ate junk.  This is the same girl I wrote notes to, which we’d exchange in the halls in between classes, and read as our teachers droned on.  This is the girl who had permanent shotgun in my car, and a regular ride to school.  The girl I shared a locker with for two years and who I only ever got into one fight with, just because someone else was instigating it.

But that was more than 10 years ago.  And since then, we stood up together in our other friend Erica’s wedding, we laughed a lot, she came to the hospital when my dad died, I went to her wedding, I offered my shoulder as she and her husband tried, and tried, and tried to have a baby–the one thing she always wanted, the one thing that, in those 14 years of friendship never, ever changed.

When I was home in April, I saw my nephew.  He’s Erica’s son.  He will be two in July, and I sat there and watched him run around and try to tell me…something, I couldn’t believe how much he’d grown.  Or how much his mom and I have grown.  She, along with Erin, is one of my oldest friends.  We met in ninth grade, economics class where I thought she was too cool to want to be my friend; I later found out she thought I was too smart to want to be hers.  Lessons in first impressions and judgements learned.

We became closer at the end of school.  But it once it started to happen, it happened quickly.  When Erin and I stood up at her wedding, I was the maid of honor.  It was my job to guard the rings all morning “Cheryl do you have the rings?”  “Yes, they’re in my bag where they were five minutes ago.  See?” I’d proclaim as I held two blue, velvet jewelry boxes up in the air.  I can’t help thinking of her as that young bride.  Or of us giggling in her bed room, gossiping and watching movies.  I still see her, at 14, writing “Funky Chicken” on my yearbook and doodling silly doodles.  Dropping everything at work to come to the hospital when my dad died.  Taking road trips to Duluth, or Iowa to visit Erin. 

Yet, here she is, with an almost two-year old.  When did he get so old?  When did we get so old?  When did our lives shift from Algebra tests and cute boys, passing notes and high school dances to paying bills and raising kids and establishing careers? 

I love my life.  I love almost everything about what brought me here.  Because even the hard stuff–the horrible first college, my dad dying, losing friendships–made me who I am today.  Sometimes though, I just like to pause for a moment and maybe even go back, just for a bit, to the giggling carefree us.