Six Years Isn't Long Between Friends

This weekend I am relaxed and rejuvenated. About six months ago I reconnected with two ladies I had been great friends with when I was first married. Back then we all lived in the same 1950s hotel turned apartment building in a military/college town in northern middle Tennessee. It was 2002. I was newly married. My parents had lived in this same town when my older sister was a baby. They had been great friends with a family at church who had a daughter a few years older than I. She and I met at church and we hit it off instantly. I lived close to campus, she lived out in the country. When my ex husband deployed to Iraq she stayed with me quite a bit to be closer to campus and to give me some company. She was as genuine and radiant as any iris I'd ever seen. And so was she named such. Then the other lady moved into our building. She was open and caring and shone with creativity and life, like a day lily. She was Lindsey and she quickly became a part of Iris' and my circle.



The year we spent together wasn't always easy. We were women in our twenties. There was jealousy on some levels, resentment on others, and genuine twenties slacking off. But through it all we remained close. Lindsey's husband and mine were deployed with different units. Iris simply was a giver and caretaker and we desperately needed that. We spent a year of being each other's family, for good or for ill. Our husbands returned from war. Iris met her future husband, and my ex got orders to Colorado. I had lived in Tennessee my entire life, we got orders to Colorado and then the very next day I found out I was expecting our daughter. The girls, not to mention my mother, were not exactly happy we were leaving. However, when you're in the Army home is where the Army sends you. We went.



Colorado was a dark, lonely time for me. I was pregnant and having complications. Iris was getting married and I couldn't be there. Lindsey went through issues of her own with her now defunct marriage and we all lost touch. I had my daughter, Iris married and had her daughter, just a few months apart. Lindsey did her own thing, she's always been that way. I lost touch with her completely.



When I moved home from Colorado after my divorce I found Iris on a social media site. We were able to reconnect and at least talk about our lives. Last fall I was surfing around on the same social media site and ran across a lady with the same name as Lindsey. Her profile picture was a picture of a cat, it looked like the same cat she had had when I knew her. I couldn't let it pass by. I emailed the lady, said I hoped she didn't think I was crazy, and wondered. A few days later Lindsey responded. It was her and she lived two miles from my front door. You could have bowled me over with a feather. We decided to meet for lunch one day and did so. It was like we had never been apart. We then decided to try to get a reunion together.



Shortly thereafter friends of ours had a baby very early. They needed a breast pump. Knowing Iris had two children (her son was born two and a half years ago) I sent her a message, asked if she had one. She did. We ran up to her home and pick it up. It, too, was like we had never been apart. Her parents, always good to me and my family, were warm and gracious, entreating us to stay longer and come back if we could.



This spring Iris began singing with the Nashville Symphony Chorus. She has the voice of an angel, always has. We began meeting one Monday a month near her practice facility for dinner and drinks. It has been fabulous to reconnect. During one of these dinners we decided we all needed to get together for an old fashioned sleepover. With Intri in Arizona until Saturday and my house empty and too quiet, the thought of a long Friday night alone rattling around my house didn't appeal to me very much. So I packed up all my scrapbooks that they wanted to see, my daughter, and myself and headed north. I picked up Lindsey on the way. We were off!



Lindsey had never met my daughter so she was excited to meet her as well. On the way we called Iris to decide on a place to eat. Miraculously we managed to make a decision in less than five minutes, something that would have taken us an hour six years before. I remarked we must have grown up a lot. We arrived in the middle of Friday night soldiers and their families induced traffic. Some things never change. When we met Iris and her husband at the restaurant it was hugs and love all around. We immediately fell back into our old patterns of random conversations strung together by "oh yeah, remember this"s. We are genuinely happy for each other and the things we've accomplished and the places we've grown into. Iris is always quick with a compliment, never insincere. We talked about how Lindsey was always pretty, Iris' new haircut suits her personality, and they both said I always looked like a rock star. I gotta hang out with them more often. They make me feel wonderful about myself.



My daughter was shy at first but warmed up quickly and was soon hopping to the bathroom with Iris. Our conversations had changed. We now talked about Miralax, GasX, and Prevacid instead of what club we were going to visit and what outfit we were going to wear. But the friendship and love for each other had not changed one bit. We're older, maybe a little wiser, more settled and not young as we used to be. There's no jealousy that was sometimes evident in our early twenties, no resentment for something the other has. Just friendship and love.



2 pitchers of Sangria later we headed for their home. We arrived and settled in. They looked at my scrapbooks, Iris went through some clothes I had brought her, and we just gabbed and had a big ole time. While looking through a scrapbook I had completed of the year my ex husband was deployed and all the things I had done, mostly with these women, Iris broke down into tears, touched that I had thought enough about the two of them to do a book with them in it.



Iris' son crashed out early, as did her husband, but we were up late into the night. My daughter, also, was up late, playing with "new" (i.e. not hers) toys. We finally called it around 1:30. I awoke the next morning early. I laughed at myself and how adult I have become. I stumbled downstairs to find coffee and then ran in and jumped on Iris' bed. We girl talked for quite awhile about our lives, our spouses, our families, everything.



We woke up Lindsey, had breakfast, then stepped outside into the beautiful, private Kentucky farmland. Our children played together. We played with them and talked some more. It finally became evident it was time to go. As I went in to take a shower I told Iris not to cry yet, I wasn't leaving yet. She asked, "How did you know? I hadn't teared up?" Friends know. She does this thing with her mouth, sets it determinedly that she won't cry.



After I showered I put my new dress on. A column maxi dress I was going to wear to pick up Intri from the airport. It was very pretty was way too long. Being the busy, skip-over-the-minor-details-in-life person that I am I was just going to pick it up and go on. Or hem it with bobby pins. Iris, knowing me and knowing this, told me to hand the dress over. "You look like a Grecian goddess. But I need ot hem it." Fifteen minutes later I had a perfectly hemmed dress. That is something I never would have done for myself. Lindsey took photos of all the children with her very nice camera, again something I never would have done for myself. We make a very good balance, the three of us. If we ever got together in a concentrated effort I don't think there's anything we couldn't accomplish.



On the way out of town Iris' dad took us to eat BBQ. It was beautiful outside and the kids played a little there too. As we prepared to leave we all decided we had to do this again SOON. And her father encouraged me to bring Intri and the other children. Some things never change. Some friendships will never die. Times change, people change, but the platonic love of women friends is forever.