Time to Start Taking the Time.
Oy. Life is flying by and I haven’t stopped by to chat for the longest time.
Plenty of posts started in my head but paying work, cooking collard green soup, cleaning house, changing the inner tubes on my bike tires and rearing children have taken priority.
But one post hasn’t left my mind, so I’ve decided to stop for a moment and write.
Weekend before last, I had a visit from a childhood friend.
On the porch, in the morning before heading downtown to get some breakfast.
Here we are back in the day.
Anne grew up a block from our high school in Central Florida but since leaving for college, she has lived way up north — Midwest up north.
First she went to Marquette University which is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
She met and married her journalist husband, Chris and they moved to Duluth, Minnesota. There they had two beautiful children and decided to head south for warmer temps to raise the family.
They settled on Cleveland.
I traveled to Central Georgia in my mid-20s and if we were to move again, notice how my arrows tend to drift.
Yes, I don’t get to see Anne often being that she is in Cleveland, Ohio. So it was extra special that she rented a car and came out to Madison on a Sunday night when she was in Atlanta for the weekend.
We talked and talked. In someways it seemed like just yesterday we were at her house for an after graduation luncheon.
But things have changed since May 1981.
I realized how very young her father, Glenn Miller the long time Director of the Orlando Public Library, was when he had his stroke — younger than I am today.
Her father has been gone a while now. As has mine.
Her younger 6′ 4″ brothers have families of their own. In my mind will always be the young, good-looking, fun, extremely tall boys who drank a gallon a milk each day.
One image sticks out in all that talking we did. Anne remarked we will soon be the grandmothers in the family photos.
Grandmothers in family photos. Us?
Grandmothers are the ones in photos in the spot reserved for grandmothers. Whom we adore.
But.
A few weeks ago, I attended the BAM conference in Nashville meeting so many great women. Women who talked of their careers, life with an empty nest and their grandchildren.
That made sense.
Those conversations with my high school buddy, not so much.
No that’s not true. It does make sense and it is wonderful.
It’s just how quickly time has flown that doesn’t make sense.
Riding out of the high school parking with the windows down and The Wall playing over the radio, life on earth was an eternity.
Now we know better.
That’s why it meant so much that Anne took the time – and the extra day — to head out this way. I’m realizing it’s time to start taking the time for what’s important.
xoxo to you Anne. Hope to visit soon — in the summers.
When was the last time you reconnect with an old friend?
