The Ties That Bind

In the last nine months I’ve been reaching out to old friends. I got married so young, and in order to seek out people who knew me before all that, I have to go way back. I’ve always been an awful pen pal. When I was little and moved away from friends every three or four years, my friends would make an effort to keep in touch and I wouldn’t. I don’t know why I was terrible at it as a child, but as an adult I didn’t feel I had much to share.

When you’re sick and everyone knows about it, people reaching out to check in feels like they are afraid to hear bad news, or are asking what level of awful I’m currently dealing with. Or, they are oblivious, but the only news I have is illness related – failed another medication, starting a clinical trial, might not be able to have kids, lost my job, and so on. No one wants to read those kinds of updates, and I certainly didn’t want to share them, so all my ties suffered – both friends and family.

Social media has its flaws, but through that flimsy connectivity I’ve been able to reach out to friends with whom I’d dropped the ball time after time. People I knew when I lived in this area as a first grader, people from elementary school abroad who scattered to the wind when we all relocated, people from my brief time in Illinois for middle school, and my long lost high school and college friends who were forever in different seasons of life than I found myself. Hearing back from these folks and learning all about their lives has filled me with joy. All the things I missed out on by not responding or making an effort to visit feel like tiny pin pricks when I finally hear about them, but to be welcomed back into the fold after so long is the greatest gift.

Now that I’m no longer living on the distant elbow of Texas, it’s actually possible to reconnect with people I never thought I’d see again. There is something so soothing about being able to hug the neck of someone who knew you when you were just you. Not we or us, but me. Having not seen much of each other over the long period since we met, they can mark the most change in me, and I in them. You were bubbly, you were chatty, you were adventurous. You had big plans. You made us laugh. You were so positive. You were a leader. It’s both a dose of hope and a shock to the system. Am I really that different? Can I go back to the way I was before, or is it too late?

Still, I don’t find myself in the same season of life as most of my older friends, with a couple exceptions. The new friends I’ve made have been excellent sounding boards. Finding people who have been through or are currently facing similar challenges has been invaluable. I have never been a divorced person with three children, so to meet and talk to other people who are wading through the muck right along side me has helped immensely. These are friends who have no idea who I was before or during my marriage, but who are meeting me just as I am today. People who have been on my side of divorce, and some who have been on the other side, and all of their counsel has been enlightening.

Having friends for different chapters of your life is normal, I think, but to get a fuller picture of who I used to be when those memories have faded away? That’s something only a true old friend can provide. Friends I’ve met in the last decade or two that have watched my life turn inside out are along for the ride in a grounding way. It can be a big ask for those people to hang around, especially in the early months where every check in is a litany of chaos and trauma. I used to feel like marriage drama was contagious, so the ones that have hung around have my deepest respect. And the new friends who are willing to dredge up their own bad days to compare notes? That can take a lot out of a person, no matter how healed they fancy themselves. Explaining their choices, acknowledging the wrong ones, and offering whatever insights they’ve gleaned from their own tragedies is a hand to hold in darkness. Maybe we’re still in the tunnel, but we can see the light at the end and will walk through it together.

I am grateful for you all.