I'm not sure how it happened - I started out as a girlie-girl, interested in clothes and boys and makeup, too shy to be part of the in-crowd, but by no means part of the outcasts, either. I don't remember meeting Mila for the first time, or what I thought of her before we became friends. My early memories of her are actually sortof sketchy - she wore a lot of black and was into heavy metal; she was constantly reading; she had beautiful long hair, green eyes, and an almost distressingly clear complexion given we were at "that age."
She introduced me to science fiction and fantasy, really. I'd read a little before, but Mila would present me with a bag of fifteen or twenty book about once every two weeks. I got sucked in, and sucked in hard. The two of us spent most of high school with our noses buried in books. Her entire family read that genre of books, so her house was filled with them. I read my way through most of their living room shelves over the space of three or four years.
We didn't agree on everything - I never did quite figure out how she could enjoy heavy metal, for instance - but that was all right. Our friendship transcended petty matters like preferences and opinions. I think I spent more time at Mila's house than my own. I called her mom "Mommy" and for a while even had my own key. I have a sortof spooky story about how I knew something was very wrong a whole day before she told me her father had died. I had a crush on her brother that I never admitted to (everyone had a crush on Mila's brother - it drove her crazy even though they got along better than any brother and sister I'd ever met). I still, ten years later, remember the phone number at her mom's house, even though I still have to look K.T.'s number up every time I call her.
We were more or less out of touch while we were in college. We called during breaks, but our schedules had become so hectic that we didn't get to see each other very often. I managed to track her down - thanks to a chance meeting of Mommy in a bookstore - to invite her to my wedding, and if we'd gone with traditional attendants, I'd probably have asked her to be one of my bridesmaids. It turned out that she had e-mail, so we spent a year or so dropping each other occasional notes. (It's a little odd that we're such bad correspondants when you consider that somewhere I have an entire notebook filled with notes we wrote each other during Latin and History classes.)
She called me a few weeks ago out of the blue and we talked for an hour. She's just finished graduate school and is looking for work. I invited her to come to K.T.'s cookout, and she did show up for an hour or so, but went home early with a headache.
She came over last night, instead, to see our house, get caught up with me, pet my cat, and give me advice on the yard.
Mila has two real passions, now: her cats, and gardening. Aside from general news about our families, we talked about little else. She gave me some advice on how to get grass to grow in our yard and some things to plant and where to put some planting beds and what plants met my requirements of being attractive and low-maintenance.
She's always been about two steps ahead of me in interests and hobbies. She introduced me to a lot of things that I didn't really appreciate until years later. Several times, I've told her about a new hobby only to find out that she'd picked it up years earlier and eventually dropped it.
It makes me wonder if gardening is going to be my next big passion, or if it'll be one of the things I just shrug and nod about.
And as long as I'm talking about passion - one of the things about our friendship that I appreciate is that it's not passionate. We don't squeal with delight when we see each other after a long break, or jabber excitedly about the "good old days." In fact, even though we don't see each other very often anymore, we fall right back into our old patterns. I got the distinct impression last night that we might've very easily wound up sitting on opposite ends of the couch, our feet in each others' laps, reading and petting the cat.
Friendships like this don't happen every day, or even every lifetime. Sometimes, you have to stop and count your blessings.
Word of the Day: malinger - to pretend incapacity (such as illness) to avoid work or duty
The worst part of having plantar fascitis is that it's not visible. No one else can look at me and think, "Wow, I bet that hurts!" So when I'm out and about with other people, I'm always a little hesitant to insist on slowing down because of my feet. Never mind that it feels like there's a sharp, red-hot pebble caught in my shoe; I look perfectly fine, and so I feel like a malingerer when I slow down to a snail's pace, exaggerating my limp a little so they'll remember.
Is that dumb, or what?
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