The last five years I’ve lived in various places around the country hundreds of miles from where I’m originally from, and I only recently moved back. I’ve been struggling to find the words to describe the experience of suddenly, now, being around friends who have known me somewhere between 50% and 70% of my entire lifetime, some who I haven’t seen in anywhere from 1-5 years. Some of us have known each other upwards of 20 years.
But I can’t find the words.
Except to say that I’m not sure there’s anything like old friends in the entire world.
And I know that not everyone gets to know what that’s like: sitting down with somebody knowing you don’t have to try, because you knew them in tenth grade when they tried to be a vegetarian and made a scene at a Wendy’s on a field trip, and they knew you when you were twelve and fiercely committed to wearing tube socks up to your knees with shorts. Not everyone gets to sit down and realize that they had amazing talents in elementary school at choosing friends, because those folks have grown up to be such awesomely cool people now. And I know that not everybody gets to have the mind-blowing realization that all these years, they’ve never actually been alone, all this time.
And so, although I can’t find the words to describe the experience itself, I do know the word for the feeling I have for it: gratitude.
What an amazing and wonderful gift to be granted.
Amorphous Amphibian 