My BFF & Letters From A Lifetime Ago

Last week I had the most amazing thing happen.

My childhood best friend - who I have not seen in years - road tripped to my house where we spent the next two days reminiscing, sharing stories (horror and happy), and crying together from our souls for various reasons.

I have never had a friend that came anywhere close to what she means to me.

I want to tell you that back in the day we were inseparable. My parents referred to her as their other daughter because she was at our house more than she was at her own.

I was the matron of honor at her wedding.

Then life got complicated for both of us with kids and husbands and jobs and dysfunction and God knows what else.  She went in one direction, I went in another.  There'd be hit and miss contact throughout the years but always in that "we should __________" kind of way.  You know how that is; we should get together, we should meet for lunch, we should call to catch up, etc.  The kind of shoulds that are well-meaning but somehow never pan out.

It bears mentioning that because my family has defined dysfunction and toxicity, I no longer have contact* with them which also means that for many years I have not had anyone who knows my history, who I can share memories with, etc.

Except for my best friend.
She knows my story.  I know hers.  

Can you put a price on having someone who could tell your story if you somehow were not able to?  I don't think so.

My friend brought a treasure along with her last week, too.  At some point she told me to wait one minute while she ran out to her car and returned with a plastic bag filled with all the letters** I wrote to her as a teenager and young adult (who got married at a much too young age - it's all in the letters).
There was more of my history in all of its loopy handwriting glory.

She saved all of my letters.  For decades. 

I, on the other hand, lost all but one of her letters over the years because I have moved so many times.  

(Not too long ago I wrote down all the places I've lived and it was more than 30 ! which is where the Gypsy part of Wistful Gyspy comes from. Stability was not a big part of my life situation.)

*Losing that connection is the price you pay when you have to estrange yourself from the people closest to you in order to save your mental and physical health.   

**We met in junior high school and then I moved to a different town 10 miles away which meant we only saw each other on weekends. During the week, we spent our time on the phone at night until our parents made us hang up and then we'd write each other letters...and mail them, because it was (is) fun to receive letters!  Then there was the time when she moved to California with her brother for a year right after high school. Back then, you were charged per minute for long distance calls which made phone calls unaffordable.  There were many, many letter during that time.