Reconnecting

Way back in my high school days, I had a friend named Kendra. We met in an art class on our first day of high school and it wasn’t long before we became inseparable. We remained that way throughout all four of our high school years. Wherever one of us was, the other was sure to be too.

Kendra and I were so close that on any given day, one of us was eating dinner at the other’s house. There were countless sleepovers. We held part-time jobs at the same bakery. We attended all of the school social functions together. We went on double dates. We were the best of friends.

We stayed connected for several years after we graduated from high school, but somewhere along the way, our lives took very different paths. I married young and soon was busy with my babies. Kendra had a serious boyfriend, and moved in with him, actually living just a few miles down the road from me for several years. And although she was with that boyfriend for many years, they never married or had children. While I was busy with the demands of being a mother to three young children, Kendra was still living a life of her own with many more freedoms than I had at the time. Our phone calls and visits grew fewer and fewer.

Eventually, there was a messy break-up for Kendra and her boyfriend. They had been together for eleven years. I remember getting the phone call when she described what had happened and felt bad that I hadn’t been close enough to her in recent years to be there for her when she was going through such a difficult time. Kendra moved into her own place not long after that call and our separation became more pronounced. There were a handful of phone calls in the years that followed, and a lot of regret on my part for a friendship that seemed to have dissolved.

As my children have grown older and I began to find that I have more time available for myself, I have often thought about reaching out to Kendra and reconnecting with her. A Christmas card a couple of years ago told me that she had met the love of her life and married him in Hawaii. But I had no phone number for her and she appeared to be unlisted. I thought I might eventually contact her parents to get her phone number. I just never seemed to get around to it. I’ve thought of her more and more over the last couple of years.

Fast forward to about two weeks ago. A glance at my email showed a Facebook notification with a friend request from…you guessed it…KENDRA! I accepted, then sent her a message telling her I had tried to find her there too, but was unsuccessful. She replied that she had just joined Facebook and that was likely why I couldn’t find her. She now lives about forty minutes away from me. In fact, for the past several years, she has never really lived so far away that we couldn’t have seen each other if either of us had reached out to the other. We were just so busy in our own separate lives that we never made it happen.

For the past couple of weeks, Kendra and I have begun to reconnect. We’re finding we still have things in common. She’s a runner too. We’ve exchanged a handful of messages and have both stated on more than one occasion that we need to get together again. It always brings about a bittersweet feeling; one that reminds me that for all of these years, we have been so close, yet so far apart. That feeling was reinforced on Friday night. I was enjoying a lazy evening and browsing around on Facebook and thought I’d pop over to Kendra’s page. There, I saw her status update written the previous Wednesday. It said, “Off to my first night of league bowling at Mattie’s…Wish me luck!”

And I said to myself, “Kendra bowls in a league, just like me.!”

But the fact that Kendra bowls on a league too wasn’t what struck me as so amazing. The amazing part of that realization was the fact that Kendra bowls in a league at Mattie’s.

I bowl at Mattie’s!

Kendra bowls at Mattie’s…and has been for the past five years. I’ve been bowling at Mattie’s for the past year and can be found there at least once or twice a week. And our paths have never crossed! Of course, I bowl on Mondays and she bowls on Wednesdays, so I guess it stands to reason. And even if I had been there on a Wednesday when she was bowling, I probably wouldn’t have noticed because I would never have expected her to be there.

I posted a message on Kendra’s page on Friday letting her know that we both bowl at the same place. Being that it was a Friday night, I didn’t expect a response from her. Imagine my surprise when the instant messenger opened and there was Kendra. We chatted for about forty-five minutes and the first thing I did was tell her that now that I know I can find her at Mattie’s, every other Wednesday, I am definitely going to make it a point to be there when she is so we can finally catch up again!

We went on to catch up on all of the kinds of things that need to be caught up on when two people have gone years without connecting. We talked about parents and siblings and jobs and kids. (She now has a step-son.) I suddenly missed Kendra’s family, the people who had been such an integral part of my life during those high school years. Kendra didn’t always get along so well with her dad, but he really liked me for some reason. I never called him Mr. (Kendra’s dad.) I just called him Dad. And he called me Terri Mary Berry Cherry. What a weird name. But it always gave me a warm feeling to be greeted that way whenever I showed up at Kendra’s house.

I can’t believe it. I’m back in touch with Kendra. God I’ve missed her! And to think I resisted Facebook for so long!