The other night, my older daughter -- home not to see me but to be wined and dined by her new prospective employer -- invited her old friends over for dinner. They are all graduating from college in a few months, all heading in different directions, but all coming back to Chicago to do it.
Plus ca change. In sweats and jeans and Uggs, they looked the same to me as they did in high school. And after almost four years apart, they are as attached and loyal to each other as they ever were. Sure, there's the inevitable gossip (always pity the person not in the room, and just know that there but for the grace of God go you), but after all these years, it's obvious that these girls are going to be each other's white knights for life. A few new pistol-packing Fionas (remember my beloved, tough talking Fi?) have been added on along the way for each of them, and the old friendships have been tested from time to time, but when push comes to shove, these guys will always have each others' backs.
I'm happy for them. That they somehow figured out how to hold on to worthwhile relationships even while their lives changed, and, more importantly, even while they changed. They're older, they're wiser, they're acutely aware that they're on the verge of having to take care of themselves. Take care of themselves, yes, but able to take comfort in the knowledge that the army of white knights always waits in the wings, keeping a watchful eye.
My younger daughter observed them, I think, with a more cynical eye. She had just returned from two nights away on a high school retreat, an experience billed as "transformative" by the planners and the student leaders and the parents of kids who have gone before. My other kids never participated in the program, and they somehow turned out okay, but all the speeches I listened to as we awaited the arrival of the delayed buses led me to believe that these kids would somehow be special. They would never be mean, they would never betray a friend, they would never even drink or do drugs. All because of two days of guided bonding at a high school love fest.
Well, guess what. Within hours, there were phone calls about exclusive parties, hurt feelings, and even stories about the older kids on the love fest -- the role models -- not being all that nice. So when you're tired from two nights without much sleep and stinky from two days without a shower and realizing that some of that warm and fuzzy feeling from the transformative weekend pulled away with the yellow school buses, it's hard to picture yourself and your current fourteen year old friends coming together seven years down the road like women who actually care about each other. I would imagine my daughter found it so unfathomable that the whole love fest in our kitchen -- that didn't involve forced love notes and and prescribed compliments -- probably seemed a bit nauseating.
I'm sure a good night's sleep will put some of her cynicism on the back burner, at least long enough for her to participate wholeheartedly in the love fest that will be her camp reunion later this afternoon. And seven years of good nights and bad nights and everything in between will probably bring her and some of her old friends back to my kitchen one day, where I'll marvel at how grown up they are, even though they still kind of look the same.
But I'm in no rush, even though she is. I'm selfish; I know that despite all the growing pains -- for all of us -- there are a lot of cherished moments to come, and I don't want to miss them.
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