Silence Between Friends

True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable.  ~Dave Tyson Gentry

Last night I went to see Super 8 with Alisha. I think it might be the first time we have ever gone to see a movie together in the ten or so years we have been friends, which is sort of remarkable because I love going to the movies and try to go as often as I can afford to and have time. It’s one of those things you do with your boyfriend or girlfriend though, you know? And I don’t have one of those, so often I am out of luck on the nights when Elise is with her dad and all of my paired off friends are otherwise engaged. So anyway, it was nice. For one thing, there was not one moment of that movie that I didn’t enjoy. I had been reading reviews of Super 8 before we went to see it and the media was saying it was like a mashup of E.T., The Goonies, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind - and that was pretty much spot on. I felt like there was something really magical about the story, I guess because it focused on the kids and not the adults in the film, which not many new movies do very well anymore. It’s nice to see things like that though, and slip back into what it feels like to be a child filled with wonder and excitement. 

Earlier in the day I was re-reading my old Livejournal, circa 2003-2005. It covered the year leading up to my pregnancy and throughout it, and I stopped writing there soon after Elise was born. I suddenly feel the need to do something to reconnect with some of the people I was good friends with at that time of life, like Dave, Siobhan, and Sara, for instance. I talked about this with Alisha last night - how I miss the old times, how sometimes these days life feels monotonous and boring - because really, it is. Every day is exactly the same, brightened by a few smatterings of newness that comes just by being in the presence of people you don’t see every day. My hermitude has its ups and downs, you see. 

“I don’t want to go back,” Alisha said, and I felt like I had to defend myself but I knew my words fell short.

It’s not that I want to go backwards. I don’t. It’s just that sometimes you lose friends and alienate people all on your own, with no help from outside forces that you can’t control. And that’s annoying, and sometimes it’s sad, and sometimes it’s for the best.. but sometimes people are just GONE and there isn’t anything you can do about it but try your damned hardest to hold on to whatever shred of friendship you can - and I am just not good at that, the long-distance friendship. 

There are so many people that have fallen by the wayside, and for the most part I can just shrug my shoulders and think: “That’s life.” 

But of course, it’s not that way with everyone. Some people you have to hang on to.

Reading the old Livejournal entries, not just mine but some of Alisha and Siobhan’s as well, I feel so shocked, and also relieved and indescribably grateful, that I still have Alisha with me. That even after she had called me a drunk jerk back in 2003, we soldiered on. 

“It’s a good thing that sometimes first impressions don’t last,” she said last night. And it sure is. 

Alisha, not your average blushing bride

A week and a half ago, I got to stand behind this beautiful bride when she wedded her other best friend. 

Sometimes we lose people. Sometimes we keep them. And sometimes the ones we keep are the ones who feel like they’ve always been there, the ones who fit into you like a puzzle piece you never knew you had been missing, the ones you can sit next to in a dark movie theatre, silent for hours, and still feel like you are right where you want to be and who you want to be with, because the best friends are the ones you don’t have to talk to, to have a conversation.