Summer breezes
It's unusually cool here today. The windows are all open, and the breeze is coming in, but it's damp, heavy and it clings to everything. I feel ungraceful as I trip through the cardboard maze, carefully stepping over the pictures left to hang, watchful not to tip over a glass of lemonade left on the stairs.
Everything feels off-kilter.
I got an e-mail from a girl I went to highschool with today. She and I were best friends for a long time, and I haven't heard from her in about five years. On my sixteenth birthday, she threw a surprise birthday party for me in her backyard. We used to go tubing together in the summer, in bikinis and cut off shorts, trying to pretend we were older than we were to get the attention of guys we had no business trying to talk to. We traded clothes, boyfriends, jokes, and got into more trouble than two teenage girls ever should have. We would each say that we were spending the night at the other's house and stay out all night together. She had a rough life, and got pregnant when she was only 17, and got married before graduation. She now has, from what I've heard through the grapevine, four kids. She's divorced, twice now I think. She never went to college after graduation, she was too busy rushing after kids and trying to make her marriage less miserable than it was.
She hated my first husband and begged me not to marry him. She said that I would never be happy, that I should follow my heart. I thought she was jealous, that she just wanted me to be unhappy like she was. When I married him, she refused to come to the wedding - she said she would object, that she would make sure that I didn't throw my life away. During the wedding, I hoped she, or someone else would come bursting through the church doors a la The Graduate, but no one did, and I wasn't brave enough to do it myself. She only called me one more time after that, and we talked maybe 20 minutes before she had to put the boys in the bath.
At Christmas, around five years ago or so, a few friends from middle and high school got together, and I saw her there. Her daughter was just a baby, and I held her most of the night as we caught up on where our lives were now. She was getting remarried, and asked me to be her maid of honor. I told her I would love to, but that I couldn't do it. She said I was stuck up, that I forgot where I came from, that I had no right to think that I was better than her because I had been in college for so long. She lit into me, yelling that because I drove a Lexus and had expensive clothes and jewelry did not make me better than her. I never thought it did.
I won't lie and say that I am not thankful that I got out of the 'trap' of being uneducated and living paycheck to paycheck. I won't say that I didn't wish she had done something more with her life. She sent me a scathing e-mail sometime later, that I never had the courage or the heart to respond to. I couldn't tell her that part of me would have given anything to be a mother... that she accomplished more by doing that than I did in three degrees.
I'm not sure how to respond to her, or if I will. I want her to be happy, and I would like to know how she is, but I don't know what we would talk about if I did call her.
Everything feels off-kilter.
I got an e-mail from a girl I went to highschool with today. She and I were best friends for a long time, and I haven't heard from her in about five years. On my sixteenth birthday, she threw a surprise birthday party for me in her backyard. We used to go tubing together in the summer, in bikinis and cut off shorts, trying to pretend we were older than we were to get the attention of guys we had no business trying to talk to. We traded clothes, boyfriends, jokes, and got into more trouble than two teenage girls ever should have. We would each say that we were spending the night at the other's house and stay out all night together. She had a rough life, and got pregnant when she was only 17, and got married before graduation. She now has, from what I've heard through the grapevine, four kids. She's divorced, twice now I think. She never went to college after graduation, she was too busy rushing after kids and trying to make her marriage less miserable than it was.
She hated my first husband and begged me not to marry him. She said that I would never be happy, that I should follow my heart. I thought she was jealous, that she just wanted me to be unhappy like she was. When I married him, she refused to come to the wedding - she said she would object, that she would make sure that I didn't throw my life away. During the wedding, I hoped she, or someone else would come bursting through the church doors a la The Graduate, but no one did, and I wasn't brave enough to do it myself. She only called me one more time after that, and we talked maybe 20 minutes before she had to put the boys in the bath.
At Christmas, around five years ago or so, a few friends from middle and high school got together, and I saw her there. Her daughter was just a baby, and I held her most of the night as we caught up on where our lives were now. She was getting remarried, and asked me to be her maid of honor. I told her I would love to, but that I couldn't do it. She said I was stuck up, that I forgot where I came from, that I had no right to think that I was better than her because I had been in college for so long. She lit into me, yelling that because I drove a Lexus and had expensive clothes and jewelry did not make me better than her. I never thought it did.
I won't lie and say that I am not thankful that I got out of the 'trap' of being uneducated and living paycheck to paycheck. I won't say that I didn't wish she had done something more with her life. She sent me a scathing e-mail sometime later, that I never had the courage or the heart to respond to. I couldn't tell her that part of me would have given anything to be a mother... that she accomplished more by doing that than I did in three degrees.
I'm not sure how to respond to her, or if I will. I want her to be happy, and I would like to know how she is, but I don't know what we would talk about if I did call her.
posted by April at 5:47 PM
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