Shift Happens

Tonight I went out with a friend of mine that I have not really spoken with in about two years. It was a somewhat strange experience.

Last week, I was walking home from the police station after filling out another police report on the car theft(s), and I saw my former friend's car parked on one of the side streets near my house. This girl used to be my closest friend - we were constant companions for about three years. So, just for the heck of it, I pulled out my phone and decided to call her [but I had to look up her number in my phone book!]. She sounded shocked to hear from me, but things were okay. She had heard that I am moving, and said we should get together before I leave to hang out. So we made a date for tonight.

I'm not really sure what happened between us to end our friendship. There was no major fight, or incident of malice between us. We just both kind of went our separate ways. I know I wasn't the greatest friend [my control issues are a lot more under control now... :-s], and she had issues of her own to deal with. She started pursuing different things in life, and I also moved on to other things.

Anyway, I wasn't sure what to expect of tonight. I felt a little awkward at first - I mean, what do you talk about with someone you haven't really talked with in two years? It started out being about our mutual friends and what they were up to. It was stiff, but things warmed up after awhile. [Mexican food can help - especially fajitas and deep fried ice cream...]

At one point, a waitress walked by with a pitcher of some sort of white, frothy concoction, and I said, "What is that? That looks good!"

She nodded and said, "Yeah, it's pina coloda."

I looked at her, surprised, and said, "But you hate pina colodas."

She looked at me with disbelief and said, "How do you remember those things?!"

I looked down at the table, shrugged and said, "I dunno....I guess some things you just don't forget. We did hang out quite a bit, back in the day..."

It was weird. And maybe if anyone is reading this, it will seem like I'm the weird one for even writing about this, but it was a strange feeling. I imagine it would be a similar feeling as a couple that spent many years together, broke up, and then saw each other again years later. Some things you just don't forget. When you know someone that intimately; what they like, what makes them laugh, what makes them fake laugh, the BS they can pull on anyone but you, their pet peeves, etc....you remember those things. And I guess at first, tonight, it felt like hanging out with a stranger. She is a different person now. We have very different lives. But in the same way, remembering that she hates pina colodas made me realize she's still the same person. I knew her.

I knew her.

And in one way, it makes me sad, because that time is gone now. In another, it makes me smile, to think of all the crazy times we had, and know that they are not forgotten. People change, people grow. Shift happens.

And just to be super-sentimentally-sappy and rip off a line from one of those annoying email forwards, I would sum up this evening with this:

"Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened."