The Kindness of Friends

Perhaps it was serendipity.  My niece, my beloved god-daughter, just completed a major rite of passage -- she graduated from high school yesterday.  While the entire year has been full of milestones -- driver's license, college acceptance, prom, senior spring break -- these past two weeks seem to have magnified it all, and both my sister and I pulled out our own yearbooks to relive our own glory days.

There is barely a page in my year book that does not have some message of encouragement and congratulations written by someone who was so important to me that I knew we would be thiscloseforever.  Folded inside the pages are yellowed newspaper clippings documenting first our football team's march to victory in Nassau County Conference II-A, and then my exhausting track and field schedule.  I ran cross country in the fall (the absolute slowest member of the team, I wasn't even on the senior picture -- I must have still been on my way back from the circle), winter track, and then spring track, where my specialty was the 1 mile race walk, at which I was pretty good.  Our entire team was exceptional, winning championships and accolades tall year long.  That, however, was not the memorable part.  What I remember most was the fun we had. 

We were always laughing.  We were incredibly goofy. We traveled as a pack. We even went to senior prom as a team -- most of us not with dates, but with opposite-sex friends who traded running shorts for prom dressed and tuxes for one short night.  And of course, we promised we would stay in touch and always be friends.

But that didn't happen.  I am actually not a great long-distance friend (although social media has helped tremendously on that front).  I left Long Island for college, and pretty much never came back.  We all went our separate ways -- schools, jobs, marriage and kids for most.  It's not that we stopped caring about our earlier friendships, it was just that our everyday lives were more pressing, and a lack of proximity led those friendships to fade.  And for me, I guess, to forget how amazing the people I grew up with were, how kind and caring and accepting. 

As I grew heavier, I became more and more embarrassed about seeing my old friends. I was no longer the little runner I was in high school.  I had stopped running a long time ago.  As I watched them document their continued activity in local fun runs and national marathons, I was sure that they would look at me in horror, and wonder what had happened to me. 

Never one for being photographed, I did the best I could to avoid the camera lens, and rarely posted pictures of myself on Facebook, so unless they saw me in person, my friends wouldn't know how heavy I had become.  I thought I was protecting myself, when in fact, I was hurting myself by keeping away from the people who were so instrumental in my becoming the person I am today.

And then, after 25 years, one of my oldest and dearest friends reached out after reading my first post about this journey.  We've been in touch through Facebook for a few years now, and she has said before that we should get together, but I was always afraid.  This time, though, she knew what had become of me, knew of my struggle with my weight, and STILL WANTED TO SEE ME, to have me meet her family!!!!  So the next time I went to see Long Island, I messaged her, and she invited me for coffee.

I was terrified, and felt a little like a kid on Christmas Eve.  I couldn't wait to see her, and the high school classmate she married.  When I pulled up to her house, I took a deep breath, and opened the car door, at the same time she opened her front door.  We rushed to one another, through our arms around each other, and had the best friend hug I think I've ever had.  Once inside the house, her husband did the same.  It was as if the past 35 years had melted away, and we were high school seniors all over again.  I was that girl again, not the morbidly obese woman I had become.

We spent the next two plus hours catching up, telling stories, and remembering why we had been so close.  Two of their daughters joined us, and must have thought we were just the biggest goofs.  We laughed so much and so hard, and there were a few tears remembering friends who we had lost over the years.  And then, it was time to leave.  But this time, when we said good bye, we knew it wasn't forever.  Jill and Chris opened the door, and I intend to cross that threshold regularly. 

Next time, I hope some of our other friends will join us.  For now, I am curling up with my yearbook, reminiscing over great times and remembering great friends, thankful to Jill for not judging, and looking forward to getting together again.  What a great outcome of this crazy journey.