(Hugs to my dear friend Donna for today’s word: serendipity.)
At the same time that I bemoan Facebook for its unrestrained
power over our children and the as-yet-unknown affect it will have on their ability
to develop proper interpersonal skills, I am thankful for the way it has
allowed me to reconnect with friends from my many past lives. A few years ago I discovered one of my high
school friends (I am resisting the opportunity to say ‘old high
school friend’), Donna, living a few miles up the road from me. This is unusual in that we grew up in Miami
and now find ourselves both living in the Boston area. This kind of serendipity makes us praise Facebook, even while we revile it.
After discovering our residential proximity and laughing on the phone together for an
hour, Donna and I made a “date” to meet for lunch. My nervous anticipation caught me by surprise. I was meeting up with someone I had not seen in over thirty years! Age creeps up on us slowly; when you
reconnect with someone from your past it is like taking a ride in a time
machine. I felt like my
fifty-something self was about to confront my once-eighteen-year-old peers, reopening all the
wounds borne out of youthful judgmentalism and sundry other offenses endemic
among teenagers. That day, I noticed the
lines and wrinkles in the mirror to which I blinded myself long ago. The arthritis in my ankles and knees seemed a
little less tolerable than the day before.
I applied a little more make up than usual.
Standing in the restaurant waiting for Donna to arrive, I
wondered whether we would recognize each other.
Donna was a swimmer in high school.
Like all swimmers, she was fit and muscular—not with the round bunchy
muscles of gymnasts, but with the long smooth muscles that aquatic athletes
develop. She could pull off wearing a
tank suit with the conviction of a super model.
Donna was that rare combination of smart, athletic, and nice. Doing a mental toe-to-toe match-up between
the me in the mirror and the Donna of senior year, I prepared to be intimidated. She was frozen in my memory as a popular,
perky, sought-after eighteen year old.
She walked in the door, looking around with that conspicuous
feeling you get when you know you are being watched but you have not yet made
visual contact with your subject.
Finally, our eyes met, and the sensation of recognition spread over her
face. We embraced in a hug that lingered
a little longer than those shared by others who met for lunch that day. Then I allowed myself to take her in. She was the same beautiful Donna, although
her hair had reverted to its natural color, no longer subjected to daily washes
of chlorine. She had the same voice, the
same dark-set eyes, the same aura of openness and congeniality. All my insecurities melted away. I was home again.
We ordered our lunches and began comparing notes from the past
thirty years. It turned out that we had
been following each other around the country.
I did a lot of business in Dallas when she was living there, we took annual
ski vacations at Breckenridge when she was living there, we both lived in the
San Francisco area at the same time, and now here we were in towns outside of Boston. There was a lot of water under the bridge for
both of us. We had left our youth behind
and lived our adult lives well. It was refreshing
to be able to share notes with someone whose journey had the same apparent destination,
even if our paths diverged radically along the way.
I think of Donna as a just-in-time prize in my life. We came together as we were both facing
major turning points in our lives. Among
the many things we were both juggling, Donna was starting a new life with
Chris, and I was emptying my nest. In an uncanny sort of way,
the vastly different lives we led along the way equipped us to provide the
right kind of support to each other. She
was just what I needed, just when I needed it.
I hate to give Facebook the credit for reconnecting me with Donna. Today, she is as much a part of my life as if we had spoken every day
for the past thirty years. And now because of Facebook, we will never lose touch again.
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