Thursday, October 12, 2006

My best friend's back

My other Best Friend. I have three friends from highschool who were officially my best friends, and two of them I miss all the time. Not often enough that I can be proud of, but often enough that I know I haven't forgotten them, that our lives would be better were we in contact.

The other one, I live with. I'm driving her crazy, actually, and I would worry that we might not stay best friends long. Except that she is the most fantastic person in the world, and when she is sick of me, she says "I'm sick of you" and I go outside and take a walk until she misses me. (OR, that's the plan anyway. Sometimes I'm too engrossed in my book to go outside, so I'd better learn to put my book down, which is something a grown-up should know how to do anyway)

I haven't always lived with her, in fact, it's been less than three weeks. There was a short time after highschool when I didn't talk to her very much, but somehow we got over that and have been getting to know each other again ever since.

The other two, I also stopped talking to during that time, but instead of getting over that, there contacts info changed and I wasn't au courant so I just lost them, and I have never gotten over it.

A Chief Anger I hold against my mother is that she didn't give me one friend's number three years ago. It may have been longer. If you are reading this, my fiddling friend, I miss you, I want you back, and it's not my fault I didn't call. I think about you every time I go to Nanaimo, every time I see a show where boys go into a closet with girls, and sometimes when I rake a lawn. And those are obscure things we only did once, but they are things I only did with you. (Except go to Nanaimo, you did that alone, and therein is the problem)

My third friend, my trucking friend, called me tonight. She has been missing me too, and I am thrilled. Because with her, it is my fault that we lost touch. In college, I had her number, and called her once, but never called her back. It was too hard, the conversation didn't flow. The past three weeks I've been thinking about her more than usual, and yesterday I wrote an email and made a call to destinations I knew were disconnected, praying that they weren't, praying I could get in contact with her again. And tonight, completely independently, she called me, or rather my Dad. He called me and I screamed so loud it made my roommate-best friend crazier. But it was worth it. I called my trucker and she has a beautiful voice, even more Canadian than I remember it being, and we talked for 45 minutes and her son- my god-son in my head even if he doesn't know it-is five and started school and it is good.

I worry that maybe I'm putting too much pressure on this, that she will read this and be totally freaked out, or that we will lose contact again and I will be devestated, and that I should try to keep my cool. But I've no interest in that, at all. This is an answer to prayer, and even if I do lose contact again, at least I will have found out a little about what she is up to, and how to think of her.

Now all I need is to find that third friend.

Oh, and to decide how to deal with a God who answers prayers like "I miss my friend" but not "Protect the people in Darfur from slaughter".

1 comment:

Val said...

I have a couple comments on what I wrote:

1. I know that I can't have more than one best friend, but I am speaking of the role, more than the status of better than any other. As in, the person to whom I talked so late in the night that guardians lost sleep. The person I talked about first sexual encounters with. The person who I ran up and down hallways giggling with. My Best friend(S).

2. I still love my mom, and I'm trying to forgive her for trying to do what she thought was best for me.

3. I'm angry at God, I noticed a while ago, but have decided to start being honest about it. I'm afraid I'll end up being heretical, that instead of voicing honest anger I'll just rant, as I'm wont to do when angry, but which never solves anything. But neither does lying.