Last summer, my cousin got married. I had met his intended perhaps two times before they married, but it wasn't until after they were married that we struck up an email friendship. At any rate, we became fast friends, which for me, is unusual. Generally, I take FOREVER to make friends, true friends, and once I do they are stuck with me as a friend FOREVER. I am loyal, to a fault, as far as my husband is concerned. Often there have been times, where he felt like I wasn't getting mutual benefits from certain friendships, and he believed I needed to kick the friend to the curb. But since it takes a lot for me to invest in people, I am very reluctant to do any curb kicking once someone has made it to my inner circle.
With that in mind, I am always surprised when a friendship doesn't have to stand the test of a long time, and travel through different phases which eventually brings me closer to that person. So, my cousin's wife, was a surprise, a pleasant one, but still a surprise. I already count her one of my closest friends and I haven't even known her 6 months. Recently, our families were sharing lunch at a restaurant, when my cousin mentions that his wife's grandmother lives not too far from where I grew up, and it turns out she lives virtually in the neighborhood where I spent the first twelve years of my life. His wife asked where exactly I lived, and I threw out the street name. She looked somewhat shocked when I told her and then she tells me she lived on the same street. If ever there was a "shut up!" moment, that was it. My house address had been 4857 and hers was 4844. Upon further probing, we discovered we lived on the same street at the same time for nearly 7 years!
The day didn't allow for further discussion of the discovery, but I mulled it over in my mind for the entire afternoon trying to piece together the missing bits of my memory from childhood. She is younger than I am, so that would account for the reason that we didn't play together a ton, but there weren't a plethora of girls in the hood, so age played a rather small part in my choice of friends. In those childhood moments when I shed my tomboy persona, any girl to play with was a welcome diversion.
The thing is, I DID remember her, but for one thing, in my mind, I thought she had belonged to another family...which would have given her an entirely different last name than her maiden name. Secondly, she went by her middle name then, which distanced the connection even further with the present woman from the past child. Together, after an evening of constant texting, and picking the brains of family members we recalled memories of shared neighbors. I even remember she was the little girl that played in the front yard in just her underwear. I invited her over one day to "sew" her a dress. It was bright yellow on top and bright green on the bottom. That is really the only playtime with her that I remember so vividly. I thought she needed clothes, so I was making her a dress!
I have felt like I have known her forever, and in a weird way, I have. Were we always meant to be friends? Was this a coincidence? Destiny? Actually, I don't believe in any kind of destiny or fate. Instead, I much prefer to think of it as a God ordained friendship. For whatever reason, our paths have been intertwined, in ways that we didn't even know until a few days ago. I am still amazed by the connection. Those that surround my friend and I are less impressed with our realized history, but it completely blows my mind. It really is all in the details, isn't it?
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