A Very Good Evening, Indeed

I’ve lived in Albuquerque for nineteen years. Before that, I lived in the Maryland side of the DC area for twenty. That’s where I went to all but the earliest grades of school. Needless to say, I made a lot of very good friends during that time. However, since the bulk of my family is in New Mexico (we have literally been here for more than a couple of centuries) which caused me to move back to my native state, I’ve missed the friends I left behind terribly.

Since New Mexico isn’t exactly on the well-worn path when it comes to travel destinations, and since I’m not much one for traveling myself, I haven’t seen any of my high school friends since I left Maryland. That changed last night. (To be fair, last fall it almost happened with a different friend, but circumstances conspired to thwart the attempt.)

Shannyn[[starto]] and I got to spend something close to five hours together visiting. We hadn’t seen each other since our 10-year high school reunion, and even then, because we were both on the committee and needed to mingle, we didn’t see much of each other.

There are some people whose threads of life are co-woven into your own. I’m not just talking about people you are friends with that you’ve known a long time, but people you’ve shared a history with. I’ve talked about Finn in another blog. Among the other people in this echelon for me is Shannyn. We both acknowledged that we have a closeness because we have that history. It’s one of those things that makes us more than just friends.

To give you an example of how fast friends that close can reconnect after twenty years: when we first met last night, we shared a slightly awkward hug (awkward due to me not wanting to unintentionally cross any boundaries…she being a proper married lady and all), and within hours we were very much completing the other’s sentences. With some people it’s just like that.

I’ll not go into the details of what we talked about during our evening. That’s pretty much for us and the people we share such info with in private. Suffice it to say that we had a nice dinner at a restaurant then we went to my home where we visited some more before bidding adieu. We talked about a lot of the things that you’d expect. To borrow from Forrest Gump, “We was like peas and carrots again.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I have been so fortunate and happy in my life to find that the people I made friends with when I was young are exactly the same people I want to be friends with now. They all fit with me like those literary peas and carrots. Shannyn and I agreed that we both felt the same way. Many of our friends (a lot of whom are shared friends) are more than just people we happen to know. They are people we’ve chosen to be family in our hearts. We also know how lucky we are that that is so.

Without a doubt, I had a very good evening, indeed. I got to spend time with someone who I’ve always enjoyed spending time with. The expectation (which I will admit was high) was exceeded by the reality. I hope everyone of you reading this gets to have moments like that in your life.