Lisha Cassibo has been writing for the Uxbridge Cosmos for two years, both as a freelancer and as a columnist. She has also written for several parenting magazines both here in Canada and for English publications in Switzerland. She graduated from Carleton University with an honours degree in Journalism and English Literature. She lives with her family in Sunderland.
If I had known then...
In true beginning-of-the-new-year fashion, greetings to friends over the past two weeks have invariably started with “So, how were your holidays?” For a while I was responding with the standard “pretty good” or “not bad at all” or “just fine, thanks, and you?” But over the weekend I got to thinking about it, and, because of two separate incidents that were eerily similar, my holidays were fantastic.
The first “incident” occurred a couple of days after Christmas. I was cleaning up mess around the house, and noticed that I had missed a call. I checked the message, and nearly fell over upon hearing the voice of a friend that I was close to in high school, but had probably spoken to a total of four times over the past 15 years. She lives out west, was in town to visit family over the holidays, and was wondering if I wanted to get together for coffee. We met the next day, and spent a couple of hours catching up. I was disappointed that her boy was at home napping, but she got to experience my three at their best (whatever that may be!) and I was sorry when we had to say good bye. (We're now friends on Facebook, though, so contact is sure to be a regular thing, and we'll be best friends again in no time - ha ha!)
The very next day, while dressed in my house-cleaning best (yes, all I do is clean when home) my phone rings, and I answer this time. It is my “BFFL”, my best friend for life. I have known her since my first day of kindergarten, at Uxbridge Public School, and even though our paths have been more parallel than crossing, we always seem to pick up right where we left off. We can go months and months without speaking, yet the news just fills in the blanks, the friendship is always there. Worst part of it is, she lives not 20 minutes from me. Anyway, she's out and about with her two kids and wondering if she can drop by? I look awful, but I race up town, grab some fresh bread and extra juice, and we spend the next three hours catching up, eating soup and carrying on, while the kids make even more mess.
These were, by far, my best two gifts. And I have had time, now, to sit back and reflect on these visits, and look at them with the advantage of years and experience. Now, one of these girls has always been a kindred spirit of sorts. We've never had any huge fight that wasn't solved with the proffering of an extra Oreo cookie, and have always been fairly, well, the same. The other girl used to be a bit of a different story. I was always a bit in awe of her, always in her shadow, in a way. She was the popular one. Got the lead in all the plays. Got the best marks. Valedictorian of the class. Tops in everything she did and touched. We got along famously, but I always felt… oh, I'm sure we all know how I felt.
But sitting there over steaming pots of tea and sharing stories of where we had been, what jobs we were doing, what our spouses did, kid stories, what plays we were in… I only realized later that those old insecurities were nowhere to be found. I will admit to feeling a little sheepish when telling her that I drove a school bus, as it followed her relating how she was doing all this fancy research at the university and applying to do her Masters, etc. But she just made the same face most people make when I tell them I voluntarily drive 45 rather rambunctious small people around in a big yellow motor vehicle - that of admiration and pity all at the same time. Other than that, none of those odd feelings were there. Which got me to thinking - what made them disappear? Did I become more secure in myself? Did she have the different-but-same hodey-ho life that I had? Had she come down in the world? Had I come up? Then I realized it wasn't anything terribly deep, terribly life-altering at all.
We'd simply grown up.
The things that had seemed so huge in school had faded away, but our personalities were essentially the same. It was even a bit easier, at least on my part, because I didn't have any of this “rubbish” tagging along.
When this probably-obvious-to-the-rest-of-the-world-but-not-to-me moment passed, I realized I had yet another bit of wisdom to put in the mental trunk that I open daily and impart bits of to my own daughters. Of course, they don't listen to me and won't ever believe a word of what I say, no matter how sage and caring my advice may be. I won't be able to tell them that they really don't need to fret about what their friends are doing now, and that they shouldn't compare themselves to others because 20 years from now they'll discover that it never turned out the way they had imagined it would. They need to experience the angst and the fears, and figure it all out for themselves. That is, of course, God willing they keep the friends they have now. There's nothing quite like those kinds of friendships.
Funny, that, eh? I could have spared myself so many tears and sleepless nights all those years ago if I had known then what I know now. But I don't think I would have nearly as much fun, if that's what you want to call it, if I had! So I am thankful for these two Christmas gifts I received. They showed me how I could change and stay the same all at once. True BFFLs.
