Had lunch with a dear old friend. A four-hour lunch. I’ll confess that we drank a number of margaritas. We were busy talking and didn’t want the check or the annoying waiter, so we’d wave him over to get us a couple of more. Which led to a couple of more. And a couple more. …Perhaps it’s not prudent to actually reveal how many we consumed. 🙂
It was like old-times in college, and by that I mean that it was like nary a year had passed after we finished the pleasantries and caught up with where we were with the husbands, the kids, work, you know. Then suddenly, we were just jabbering away.
The meal itself was forgettable. Mexican nouvelle cuisine. It was different. Not bad, just…different. It was nothing like the ridiculous greasy portions at our old stomping ground, El Torito, but the ambiance was good, the margaritas exceptional, and the company, of course, unparalleled.
I don’t enjoy days like that enough — I just don’t make the time for a restorative afternoon for myself, with someone I like, doing something I enjoy (this isn’t helping my reputation as a lush, is it?).
Don’t read something sad or pathetic into this — that’s not where I’m going with my thoughts. I have plenty that keeps me busy, and in spite of the griping and busy-ness of it, I enjoy what I do, the friends I have, and the random escapes with the hubs to watch movies IN THE THEATER! (this is significant if you know John can’t stand going to the movies and being surrounded by teenagers with their cell-phones).
It made me think about why we find such comfort in reconnecting with people from our past — people we still feel close to because they were such an important part of our lives, but circumstances, distance, heck — life — has happened and created distance. A distance, by the way, that we’re content with but is so easily bridged. With a call. A conversation. A message on Facebook.
And yes. A margarita. 🙂
Those friendships age like a good wine — maturing and gaining strength, and perhaps we are drawn to them when we’re older, not so much to re-live wild days, but reminisce and feel the bonds of that relationship. It validates, not so much who we were, but who we have become because the roots of that are certainly set in those relationships.
We were just two middle-aged broads holding the menus at arm’s length and fumbling around for the reading glasses. It was a good laugh.
And a reminder that this is a good life.