REPEAT: The way life should be

This is the third of the last four posts that have found me coming in hot from the road, and it’s the second one from the great state of Maine.

A lot has happened since the last time I was here in Vacationland (and Sardineland), most of which I’ve reported on. But there’s some new stuff too.

First things first, though, and I’ll be honest. I’m still “off,” as I first mentioned the last time we were together on a Tuesday.

Yes, the wedding was amazing. And yes, there is so much to be thankful for.

But there’s still some unsettledness within and thus it’s still important to confront what lies beneath. So I’m still working on that.

Though waking up for/to this helps:

Since last Monday (when I wrote about the aforementioned wedding, more on that here) and now, I was reminded that the circle of life spins out of control. Last week I attended a very sad funeral for the best friend of a best friend, a sudden and unexpected death. Someone too young (59) and so full of life…to those who loved them, it’s beyond devastating. Someone I’ve known of for a very long time, though I did not know well as our orbits rarely intersected…but still my heart breaks for my friend and her crew. It’s the kind of shock that will send shock waves through their lives for a long time…and sad ripples forever.

When I got in the car after the Mass, I automatically put the program up over the visor…and noticed that the pile of programs I’ve filed there has grown quite a bit…an 8-year archive of loss. ❤️‍🩹

All loss leaves a hole…and this leaves a particularly huge one in my friend’s life.

And so I mention this not for sympathy but to call attention to something we all already know, but still often need to be reminded of: you never know.

You gotta live while you can.

You gotta say yes to the few days in Maine even though you *just* drove to and from Canada after *just* traveling to and from Maine.

You need to set your alarm for a ridiculously early hour to get up to watch the sun rise, even if you can’t always actually see it.

You need to answer the door when opportunity knocks and say yes to what life offers. (Though sometimes you do need to say no…which is entirely another matter.)

And right now I’m glad I said yes to these three days in Maine and have gotten up early for the sunrise for the first two mornings.

So, I’m here in Harpswell with three of my college roommates, and the last time the four of us were together it was our 30th reunion. Which would have been 2019. (Shocking. I know. We don’t look a day over 55.)

Needless to say, we were overdue for this getaway.

One friend was up here since Thursday with her two kidults and one of their gfs. The other three of us came up Sunday. The drive was a breeze…uneventful save for a standoff with a local on a one-lane road about 1500 feet from the rental house. (He was kind of a d-ck about it. I mean, there was a car behind me and he was right near a driveway that he could have pulled into. But neither of us was budging and unfortunately he wasn’t interested in the obvious solution—he wanted to be right, so he marched up to my window and gave me a very condescending talking to about “things that people who live here know.” (See? He was being a d-ck.) Someone needs to remind him that we’re in Vacationland and that being rude to strangers is not the way life should be. it (That said, the d-ckishness seems to be a thing here. When we went for a walk yesterday afternoon, we walked past a guy, said “hi” and he responded with “you renting out here?” We said that we were and he said “just checking.” Checking what exactly? We’re four middle-aged women, miles off a main road. Was he really worried we were about to go wilding???)

Anyhow, as it so happened, that car behind me during the standoff followed me all the way into the driveway and before I even opened the car door my friend’s stepmom, someone else (a step aunt as it turns out), half sis, and half bro hopped out and unloaded all kinds of party supplies (it was my friend’s bday). It was great to see them all and my friend’s “kids” are awesome. They have such good energy…lightens everything up. Unfortunately after the lobsters were devoured and the plates cleared, everyone had places to go and people to see so they headed out. ’Twas very fun while it lasted. But it was also nice to settle in, just the four of us.

With the stage set I best get to talking about transformation, since that’s what I do here on Tuesdays. It’s fair to say there’s been lots of individual and interpersonal transformation since we four first met in 1985…marriages, kids, divorce, moves, illness, death of loved ones…and thus our relationships morphed as well.

But so much is the same.

The belly laughs come as easy as breathing. Old forgotten patterns come back just like riding a bike.

And when you eat lobster with people you love in Maine, it tastes like heaven.

Yesterday was a chill day around the house, a visit with a friend of a friend, a trip to Gelato Fiasco, a walk around downtown Brunswick (our old stomping grounds) and watching the (tainted) World Cup. I guess a certain 🐓🌮🤡🐷👶 was unable to transform the course of futbol history through his ridiculous and uncalled for intervention in the red card affair. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Anyhow, what the last few weeks have reminded me—and the last few days have reinforced—is that life is constant flux. That’s what makes it so great and so terrible. It grows and shrinks on a micro level…and gets bigger and smaller on a macro level. We all go through cycles with it, some of the cycles in sync (solidarity!), others seem completely out of time (isolation).

It’s all teaching me something, which is inherently good. And what it’s teaching me is that all of it is ok. We’re still in it together, and the people who really love us will always really love us.

Though bedtime seems to come earlier and wake-up comes later (for some), the amount of fun we can pack into the time we do have remains unchanged. There’s an almost perfect mix of together time, alone time, quiet comfort, and loud laughter…there’s a love, a contentment, and a peace that you can see and feel. It’s special. And the only thing I hate about it is how easy it is to forget how special it is during the stretches of time that we don’t see each other.

We’re all so different, and the differences are more stark now than they were back then. The differences are what make these decades-long friendships that much more meaningful—we’ve managed to stay connected when drifting might have been easier or more convenient. We’ve picked up what life and circumstances had forced us to put down. And we keep doing it. Just because. In many ways, old friendships are, as Whitney would sing, “the greatest love of all.”

Perhaps the biggest transformation of all, though? That second B in BYOB no longer stands for booze. It stands for “binoculars.” Apparently we all like a bit of birding now.

Oh, who am I kidding?

It’s more like BYOBB. Booze AND binoculars. Habits and tastes may have changed but we still enjoy cutting loose with the “girls.”

Life doesn’t always happen in the manner or order we wish it would but somehow we manage to make the pieces fit without forcing them. And it really is a ginormous, gorgeous tangled mass of all the little and big things.

Or, in the words of Rob Base, from another great song of the 80s, “joy and pain…sunshine and rain…”

The joy of good tunes beckons so think I’ll go pour myself a cup of sunshine (coffee) and settle in with great friends.

Meanwhile, I hope your life is full of more joy and sunshine than pain and rain. But whatever you’ve got going on, remember how much I appreciate you and your willingness to spend time here with me.

Love you too.

My voice is even huskier than usual due to the early hour…but the view…and a nice reminder that even when you can’t see it, the sun rises:

Share