When I was a little tyke in the Bluebirds/Campfire girls, one of the many earworms they infected us with was, “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver, but the other’s gold.” Recently that’s been playing on my mind nonstop because this past week I’ve spent time with two of my very, very long-term friends.
My friend Cory goes all the way back to high school—we were, among other things, cheerleaders together! She was kind enough to tutor me in Math (I was so bad, it’s amazing that our friendship survived that alone!) and our connection persisted through college, though she went to Rochester and I stayed in New York. When she got her driver’s license, we drove around together, sometimes going places we didn’t mean to, like over the George Washington Bridge, because as a new driver, once she got on a route, she didn’t know how to get off.
She was the only friend I invited to my first wedding, which means that she is the only one who can attest to the fact that I was even married before David:)
I can’t remember how it began, but at some point, she started to send me chocolate rabbits for Easter, and she has been sending me these bunnies for all these many years!!
I was at her wedding and with her at her children’s Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, reveled in her successes as a top flight lawyer, and this past January marched with her in D.C. Last week, she was in New York, and we went to a terrific restaurant and laughed a great deal—and she told David how I had turned her on to roller coaster rides, at the now defunct Cyclone at Palisades Amusement Park. Our mutual love of roller coaster rides is strong, but pales compared to our love for each other.
I met Steven when I was dramatics counselor at the one time I went to sleep away camp. We put on Finian’s Rainbow. I can still remember most of the songs, “On the day I was born, said my father, said he… I’ve an elegant legacy waiting for ye…”
Steven became my boyfriend, after I discarded a British chap. We remained friends through college, then drifted apart, only to find each other some twenty years later, living not two blocks apart in Manhattan. He was a lawyer, I a producer and we dated for over a year —but Steven was going through some major professional challenges which made intimate relationships difficult to maintain.
We stayed friends, spoke on the phone a lot, didn’t see each other nearly often enough. Eight years ago, he helped me get a lawyer after my Dad died, and just four months ago he helped David and I get a lawyer to deal with a crazy tenant of ours. He is sweeter than sweet, and when he came over last night for a Bar-B-Q, we were able to look back at some of the old times while planning for the next phase of his life.
When you’re young, it’s hard to know which of your friends will withstand the vagaries of time; like a marriage, people change, and you don’t necessarily share the same interests or connection you had before. The Chinese philosopher Mencius wrote “Friends are the siblings God never gave us.” I am so grateful that these two people are still in my life, that all I can say is, Thank you God.
