C Squared

Who: Christine and Christy...bff's (long before they actually called them that)
When: Day before 8th Grade graduation from Catholic School
What: Graduation Card
How: Found it while searching through an old musty box....

June 17, 1983
Dear Chickie,
Do you realize that we've been buddies for 4 years? That's such a long time! We've got more years ahead of us I know.
Thanks for everything you've done for me for all these years
I'll never forget 7th grade, watering the plants, and 8th grade!
Please remember me and keep in touch,
Love always,
Love & kisses & bunny hugs
Christy

We were the best of friends. We were so young...only 13...discovering boys, discovering ourselves, being as crazy and daring as 13 year olds could be. The two of us rode together on my old 10-speed bike...fast and uphill and between cars...with one person pedaling and the other sitting on the seat, legs dangling and holding on for dear life. We slept at each others houses, sharing our secrets, baring our souls. We did crafts, put on makeup. We produced plays together (yes, it's true but that's another story). We tried cigarettes. We even smoked tea...yes, Lipton tea...rolled in looseleaf. We were boy crazy together. We were free.

We lost touch in high school...each one of us got wrapped up in our own school lives, busying ourselves with new experiences, new friends. Then came college, then came careers and loves and family ups and downs. There was no argument that separated us...or any major cataclysmic event...we just drifted slowly apart...pulled away from each other by the tides of our own lives. But in my mind, the summer of 1983 was the very best summer EVER! It was my most happy, my most carefree. And Christy and I shared it together.

I thought about Christy many times over the years. Wondered where she had gone, how she had turned out. I even Googled her a few years ago...but she had changed her name, I recently learned, and searches for her came up almost empty.

Then came Facebook! I searched for her brother, then found her mother, and then I saw her! It had to be her...She changed her name, but it looked like her. It was her! It was really her!

She and her boyfriend were producers of an off off Broadway theatrical production, and I decided to go at the last minute...to it's last performance on the last night. I saw her before she saw me...fiddling with the video camera she was attending to. Tears came immediately to my eyes. I became 13 again...and THERE was my best friend! When she saw me tears came to hers as well.

It turns out that both of us had searched for each other and come up empty over the years. But it didn't matter. It was 26 years later, and it was still us. And if I must say so myself, we look pretty darn good.

And Christy is now back in my life. We went to dinner and talked for five hours (to the chagrin of the restaurant I'm sure). And she is still as kind and graceful and loving as she ever was. We welcomed each other back into our lives. She has come back into my life at a time when I couldn't have needed someone more. And I am so, so, so grateful for that.