The Girl I Miss Most

This morning, I sent an email to an old friend - one I've not seen, nor spoken to in almost a decade. I've thought of her, of course. We were best friends for many years until....well, until we weren't.

Time's a funny thing - it changes how you see the world: how it really was, who you really were.
Then, I was fearless and selfish and foolish and a little bit crazy. She was steady and down-to-earth and patient and good. Today, my fears are mostly for my children, and every day I strive for goodness. Some days, I am almost good. Most days, I must simply try harder.

Years ago, I read a book called "Something Borrowed" by Emily Giffin. It stung with every line, as I recognized myself over and over - Darcy, the self-absorbed, attention-seeking, wild-child, tramp. Me. It made me miss my friend all the more - seeing, not for the first time, but with stunning clarity, the damage done. How I longed to call, begging forgiveness for all that I had been, wasn't, had done, and hadn't.

Instead, I clung to my pride and didn't screw up my courage and time went on and the years passed. And then this morning came and there, in my inbox, her address, forwarded.

Quickly, quickly, before my courage flagged, I wrote. A brief, cheery message - updates, mostly: Married, parents fine, have children, no dog...and you? But oh, how my heart ached with each question posed and I wondered, how had I allowed ten years to pass? I did not know the basic details about the life of a woman whose teenaged secrets I once shared.

And then, I waited.

Hours later, she replied, answering every question good-naturedly,and attaching photos of her two boys, whose handsome faces stole my breath, caused my heart to skip a beat. She offered that her Matthew joined her family at Thanksgiving, 2005 - the same weekend that my Matthew came home for the very first time. I laughed out loud at this delightful sychronicity, this tiny quirk of the universe that reminds me that everything, every. little.thing happens for a reason.

That both she and I were married at Thanksgiving, a decade apart, well, that's got to mean something. Doesn't it?

I cannot say what the coming weeks and months will hold for us - me and my old friend. I am trying desperately to stem this giddy feeling that's blooming inside me. I have missed her so much - I have missed the girl she was, the woman she became, the mother she was born to be.

I hope that she's missed me enough, that perhaps, I won't miss anymore.