Friends 4 Ever

I contacted my friend, Eva yesterday. I hadn't seen her since the Havergal 15th year reunion in October 2005 (right before we moved here). I wanted to touch base, see how she was doing, what her family was up to, and mish mash the gossip if there was any. I’m happy to report that Evsie is doing great. She's back to work at IBM after having back-to-back babies. They're all living in their newly-renovated house in the city. And life is good.

We did the usually post-game catch up conversation and then we slid into the mommy talk. Is she toilet trained? Does he go to pre-school? Do you sleep much? Have you set up babysitters? How is he with traveling? Doctors? Ear infections? This sort of thing. We also talked about working and being a mother and a wife and a daughter and a daughter-in-law and a friend and how sometimes there is no TIME left to be anything else. I'm glad that Eva is working again, as much as it complicates the daily routine and the prohibitive costs involved, it is worth it. We both agreed that to us, keeping your mind active and having a life away from your children was important - more than important - necessary.

We didn't get to talk as long as we wanted to... Eva and hubby had to go grocery shopping before the Nanny got back from the park with the kids, and I had to walk a full-bladdered dog before bed. Sometimes life gets in the way. But long after the telephone call ended, I was sitting in bed thinking about how long I've known Eva and what a relationship of 20 some years translates into. It transcends mere friendship and comes closer to a definition of an extended family. Not the family that you see everyday but more like the family that shows up at the family picnic or a great-great aunt's funeral. You get close, and then grow apart and then you find each other again and it's as if there was not time apart to speak of.

When I thought about my high school friends, I was actually surprised to realize that of the inner circle of about 8 girls, we are all in touch with each other in one form or another - all except one. We've shared a lot over the years. There's the bad stuff: drug addiction, depression, abusive relationships, eating disorders, miscarriages, racism, problems with parents, divorce, and alcoholism.

And there have been good times, too. We've been to each other's weddings, bridal showers, birthdays, christenings, stagettes, housewarmings, baby showers, bon voyage parties, award ceremonies, and after parties. Oh... and I almost forgot, Beth's New Year's Eve dinner extravaganzas.

We've been university roommates, housemates, neighbours, traveling buddies. Some of us have worked together - sitting side-by-side in office cubicles, trading emails like notes passed in Grade Nine physics class. And we've been busted for doing so as if it were Grade Nine physics class.

Some of us married, some of us have not... it's about 50/50. Some have steady boyfriends and others are still looking. Eva and I are the only ones with kids but women tend to have babies later these days and I wouldn't doubt that some of our friends will surprise us with a pregnancy in her forties. But there are those who won't have kids and that's fine too.

Back in high school we all dated the same guys. It was a bit like ‘musical boyfriend’. Sometimes, when we're drunk at one of those reunions, we still talk about who was the best kisser, how far you went with whom, who you pined for and who broke your heart. Oddly enough, there are many of these guys that we keep in touch with although none of us ever married one of those heartbreakers.

We've traveled and lived all over the world. Beth is in Rwanda for the summer, working on a film about Romeo Dallaire with her boyfriend. Eva lived in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. Caroline lived and worked in West Africa for years. Lee just got back from NYC. Aniko was out of England for a while - and Japan too. Karla traipsed around Europe and the US. And here I am living in Amsterdam.

Our careers are diverse and all except the one whose name we don't speak, there isn't a lawyer or doctor in the bunch. But success is different at 35 than it was at 15. Most of us just want to pay the bills (more or less) on time, go out for a nice dinner (once and a while) and have somewhere decent to live. Not a lot to ask.

I don't know what defining force keeps us together. Was it because we went to a small, all-girls private school? Was it because that we all shared the same sense of humour? The same taste in music? Being dumped by the same guy? Is it because we all went through that awkward "My So Called Life" period together – run-ins with Toronto’s finest for public drunkenness, late-night telephone sobbing marathons and embarrassing Phys Ed. gymnastic routines? Is it because we all eventually come back to Toronto like bees returning to the hive? It’s most of these things.

I also think that after 20 plus years, there is less pressure to "be" something to these people. You're just who you are and when you think that you’re someone that you're not, one of these women will put you back in your place and remind you of the time you puked your guts out in her bathtub. We share a common past and it allows us breathing room complete with the comfortable silence of months and years that sometimes pass before we re-connect. And for the most part, we're cool with that.

So if you guys... are reading this, I just want to let you know that I love you. And I miss you too.

RTD Forever.