Reconnecting With My History

Always an introvert, the Pandemic only worsened that for me, until I found myself nearly muted as well as isolated. So bear with me as I try to find my “voice” again.

Recently, a family tragedy caused an old friend, Karen, to reach out by text, and I decided to be bold and phone her. We spent nearly two hours catching up, which wasn’t nearly enough time to devote to all the topics we touched on. So I’m vowing to keep in touch with her. And sharing an interest in true crime, we’ve already texted today.

In one of the stories I’m working on now, there’s a bit about making new friends and realizing how much you lack when there’s no history between you. Karen and I met as freshmen in high school—that was 1964! We’ve been friends ever since, though we had a parting of ways for a couple of years during my most zealous religious days. But during most of our child-rearing years, we were very close.

Then I moved 2,200 miles away. Still, we kept in contact mostly through phone calls—this was pre-Internet. We met once in Las Vegas, she came to visit me once, and I saw her each time we went back to Indianapolis to visit family. But, somewhat naturally, we drifted apart. Eventually, we reconnected on Facebook with an occasional phone conversation, but then, though I kept telling myself to call her, more and more time kept passing until we only kept contact through those posts.

But the great thing is that Karen and I have shared history. In our recent phone conversation, we could say names of children and friends and not have to explain who we meant. We could mention events in our lives without starting from the beginning. We could fill in mental images of these people and places and events because we’d both lived them. That’s a bond that doesn’t break.

I’m grateful to Karen for literally saving my life even before we knew about the Heimlich maneuver, for turning me on to some great authors, for inspiring me to try breast-feeding, for my first taste of French onion soup, for many, many other good things in my life. Now, if only I can get her to play Words With Friends. 😊