What I Learn From My Adventurous Friend
The bonds that bind us from a shared past, despite two distinctly different lives
Last week an old school friend came to stay for a few days. She and her young daughter had travelled from their home in Nepal to visit family, and they used our house as their base. We have the kind of friendship that remains preserved despite years of not seeing each other. I am tempted to say like something pickled, only it is sweeter than that. She is also one of those friends who, every time we meet again, transports me back to how we were as teenagers. She is an extraordinary human being. Striking, with an Amazonian presence, powerful, discerning, open hearted. She is dark and chocolatey, with beautiful skin, and one of a few friends I can easily hug. When we are together, she takes me in her arms and calls me Lilykins. She then squidges me and grits her teeth with passion. For some reasons I call her Melly Moo, despite her name being Miranda. When I say it in my mind, I hear her laugh as clearly as if she was in the room.
But mostly, when we meet again, I am struck by the alignment of two old friends: how familiar we are with those who were there when we grew into ourselves; how profound is the foundation of childhood. How at its centre is trust, of being seen and being known on levels we are not wholly and consciously aware of. And despite our differences, we are a mirror to each other because of this shared past, while also reminding ourselves of how things might have been: two people born in the same year, at school in the same district, to a similar demographic, and yet somewhere along the way, we took two extremely different paths.
