Life Outside the Box

Next weekend, I will be heading south with my good friend Jenny for our second annual minimal frills spa adventure in the wilds of central Illinois.

Not surprisingly, over the course of the past year, we have failed to keep in touch with the eight or nine new best friends we acquired there. Still, though, I know we met them all for a reason, and I think about their stories and the stories we created together often. We were a motley crew, a bunch of mismatched folks who viewed each other, at first, with suspicion. We made assumptions about each other and ourselves, and were all quite surprised at how wrong we were about the pertinence of our differences.

This week, I had a surprise house guest. A surprise not only because I had no idea beforehand that I would be hosting somebody, but also because I had never met the person. And, a surprise because I had such a fabulous two days with her, I actually felt a bit lost when she left.

We have already kept in touch in the twenty-four hours since her departure, and I am hopeful that this woman's startling entry into my life will turn into something more lasting than a somewhat intangible memory. The odds are in our favor. Our daughters are great friends, we both have out-of-control potty mouths, we both love avocado and goat cheese, and we both wear a size 9 shoe. The commonalities are endless.

We come from completely different backgrounds, we look completely different (except for our haircuts and our feet), and we have chosen completely different career paths (in the sense that she actually chose one). We both come from the New York area, though her experience is colored by life in the South, mine by life in the Midwest.

But we have both tried, in our adult lives, to claw our way out of the boxes in which we are expected to reside and behave, much to the dismay and embarrassment, sometimes, of our friends and relatives. Our children shake their heads at us, but seem to love us no matter what. A woman who can raise a well-adjusted daughter even after demonstrating to her and a few friends on a dill pickle how to give a good blow job deserves some credit. I can only aspire to such inappropriateness, although my kids would certainly applaud me (sheepishly) for coming close.

My new friend has returned, safe and sound, to her world, leaving me to my own devices, yet again, in mine. Thankfully, I have a generous handful of good friends here, friends who claw their way out of their own boxes and enrich my days and catch me when I start to fall. And, no doubt, Jenny and I will meet eight or nine new best friends next weekend, folks we might never see again but who will most assuredly have entered our lives for a reason.