old friends

Stall holders watched us expectantly as we grazed past their wares. Absentmindedly handling tactile items within grabbing distance but not really paying any attention to the retail therapy that had been suggested as an activity for that sunny afternoon. We seemed to have caught up on nine years worth of news in half an hour as we babbled, ten to the dozen, talking over ourselves.

No-one seemed to have changed very much. When we finally abandoned the craft market, accepting that our reunion was far too exciting to be distracted from, we vocalised this and laughed about it as we sat around and drank tea. No-one seemed to have aged at all. I think the only noticeable difference might have been that we had chosen a café, rather than a bar, and tea, rather than something considerably more intoxicating to drink.

Of course, a lot had actually changed, circumstantially. Some of us had partners now, and some of us had children. We had responsibilities and had made progress towards achieving what we set out for all those years ago. We had experienced loss and pain and joy and new beginnings and thousands of new sights and sounds and places between then and now. But all this was forgotten as we giggled over the times we’d shared at the beginnings of our adulthood.

We pieced together chronologies of people who had been a part of us based on chance meetings and hear say. And there was a kind of mourning for those who had burnt their bridges and seemed to have disappeared without a trace.

Briefly we were eighteen, nineteen, twenty again. The smiling wide eyed sisterhood was resurrected around our table.

As we parted ways and vowed to keep in touch it seemed as if our friendship might operate as it had before…..although an inner wisdom that belied the outward unchangedness we had laughed about, acknowledged, lovingly, that it was more than likely we would drift back to our lives and away from each other. Perhaps meeting again in another nine years.