Just Write {49}

August 20, 2012

We were walking down to the dock and one of my all-my-life friends was talking about income tax changes and how things got all wonky with moving to a different state. It was all like a foreign language to me, since numbers were involved. We talked then about how weird it is for us to sit around talking about things like taxes and school choices for our children and what we look for when we’re buying a home. It’s so adult of us to talk about these things, but I look at you and think you look the same as you always have,

way back to childhood.

Who are these grown-ups? Shouldn’t your parents be taking care of that whole tax thing? and we laugh.

We sit three in a row on the edge of the dock and splash our feet in the water. It’s the most beautiful late afternoon, a breeze coming off the lake and the water feels warm. We of course are laughing about old and new things and we’re spouting off rapid fire stories and cracking each other up like always.

I sat and thought about how much richer their humor is and I don’t know how that can be, since they’ve always been so funny. I guess it comes with being the grown ups, always finding a way to laugh. There’s so much practice at over-coming with humor. The sleep-deprivation and the bullies at school and the marriage struggles and the trying trying trying.

We sit together like always and we laugh and don’t hide the hard things either.

It had been too long and it wasn’t long enough, there on that dock. There’s so much to say, with all these years between us and all these months of no time to get together. I just can’t ever get enough, of these people who knew me before I was a wife or mother or any kind of grown up at all. These friends that continue to know me as I change and slowly grow up, and then they still keep me and we sit on the edge and splash in the water like always.

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This is the 49th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.} I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page, and please don’t link to posts that are not written in the spirit of capturing moments–like lists or sponsored posts. Then please link back to this post in your post so people know where to go if they’d like to join in. (Any links not following those two guidelines will be deleted.)

Also. Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word?

 


{ 17 comments }

Shelly Miller August 20, 2012 at 9:05 pm

Jealous that you can still sit with your lifelong friends that know you that well. I’ve moved around so much in my life, I can’t imagine what that is like. It’s a gift, to hear you express it, really.
Shelly Miller recently posted..When Life Lets Go, Before You’re Ready

Rach (DonutsMama) August 20, 2012 at 9:26 pm

I have friends like that too and it’s so wonderful to bask in those friendships and not have to explain or even say anything. And it’s nice to be seen as someone with many sides: friend, teenager, mom. The times spent with those friends are priceless.
Rach (DonutsMama) recently posted..Memories Captured: 19 Months

Laura @ Hollywood Housewife August 20, 2012 at 9:43 pm

I have friends like this. And you just made me very, very homesick.
Laura @ Hollywood Housewife recently posted..well-rounded

Alison August 20, 2012 at 10:05 pm

How blessed you are with such wonderful friends. I have friends like these – but they’re too far away and it makes me sad to know I won’t have such moments with them as much as I’d like.
Alison recently posted..My Parenting Style Is Best Described As Flying By The Seat Of My Pants

Gianna August 20, 2012 at 10:59 pm

laughter is awesome. Real true belly laughs are the best medicine.
I even had one during labor with my first baby. And even though it was during a contraction and I couldn’t laugh, all I wanted to do WAs laugh. As soon as the contraction was done, I collapsed into hysterical giggles!

It was amazing!
Gianna recently posted..Deepness

Joan August 21, 2012 at 6:21 am

Heather – I learned of your blog through Shelly at Redemptions Beauty and I’m joining in for the first time.

You are blessed to be able to sit with a life long friend – laughing and sharing.
Joan recently posted..A Grateful Heart

Jessica August 21, 2012 at 6:25 am

I have lost touch with most of my childhood friends but this post makes me want to search for each of them.
Jessica recently posted..Treading Water

Chrissy August 21, 2012 at 9:49 am

This is so lovely….I don’t get to see some of these friends as often as I would like, but I genuinely feel them in the ways they shape every little thing I do and I can still hear them giggling with me, side by side:) Thank you!
Chrissy recently posted..First Day

The Illiterate Author August 21, 2012 at 10:37 am

Your writing is so lovely. Like some before me have mentioned also, I’ve moved around a lot and so can’t relate to this as well as I’d like to, but you show old friendships so beautifully.
The Illiterate Author recently posted..Two Years

nicole August 21, 2012 at 10:42 am

Friends are the best. I had dinner with two of my closest friends last week. We met in college. We all agreed that we would likely not have gotten along when young because we all love to talk and have attention! Ha!
nicole recently posted..And Then My Head Exploded

Julia August 21, 2012 at 12:55 pm

This captures how I feel about my life long friends too. The whole when did we become adults thing always gets me.
Julia recently posted..#SundayFunday

shannon August 22, 2012 at 10:35 am

I so look forward to your Just Writes. Beautiful writing.
shannon recently posted..wrestling with smug

Amanda August 22, 2012 at 1:23 pm

I envy you your time on the dock, or maybe more the people on your dock. Wishing for mroe time for you.
Amanda recently posted..Akin to another rape

suzannah | the smitten word August 22, 2012 at 8:43 pm

it’s like that with my siblings. so very good:)
suzannah | the smitten word recently posted..august and everything after

Jessica@Team Rasler August 23, 2012 at 8:19 am

I’ve moved to the other side of the country, so it’s hard for me to get together with friends who knew me Before, but it’s like this with my siblings. I love texting them “remember whens” and listening to my lawyer-brother talk about cases definitely feels like that moment you and your friend had of, “Shouldn’t your parents be handling that?”
Jessica@Team Rasler recently posted..The devil inside

Emily Cook August 23, 2012 at 11:34 am

I love this. Friends like this are such a blessing. You can be young and old with them at the same time.
Emily Cook recently posted..Little much-loved one.

Elizabeth August 24, 2012 at 11:16 am

This one made me tear up this morning as one of my oldest, dearest friends rode off on his motorcycle after a 14 hour visit. Once a year I get to see him. And we sat and talked with no hiding of the hard things, and with the past draped behind us like a familiar landscape, making everything from now make that much more sense.
Elizabeth recently posted..like blankets

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