Enduring

 I had arrived early for a late lunch at the diner.

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As I sat at the table, waiting for my friend – a woman, like me, whose children were all of a sudden grown – I exhaled.  It was a spur-of-the-moment meal. The kind of thing we usually say we will do, but never schedule. Until one day, in some unspoken alignment brought together by random texts bearing silly jokes, we set a date and see it through.

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My stomach growled as I looked over the menu.  

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I would order the same thing I always order: Swiss cheese omelet with rye toast. No jam. Hot sauce, please. She has no usual. When my friend arrives, I know she will make a game-day decision.

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The server brings me coffee.

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When she walks in a few minutes later, the room will come to life. Her voice carries, as mine does, but unlike mine, she has a clear tone that has a distinct melody. No one would ever accuse her of being monotonous.

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I smile, thinking about all the ways her voice changes. Our conversations meander and overlap, the way good advice discourages. “Don’t answer their story with a similar story of your own,” the inconvenient narrator in my head tries to interject as I push forward with my response.

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The history of our friendship could be put into words and follow a chronology stemming from our children’s early education, but it wouldn’t be able to describe the things that make the friendship seem effortless that don’t also align with happenstance.

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We would talk, and laugh, and yell, and say things that make the neighboring tables blush. We swapped stories of how the kids are moving on, how the husbands are still the same, but somehow we are getting grumpier.

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We avoid talking about the things that are heavy or create anxiety because we have accepted these as problems beyond our control, so we commence in complaining about the things in our lives that we could change … even though the likelihood of us changing them is less than one iota.

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Time gets away from us, but not the same way it transformed our kids. We blinked here at the table, and it was nearing late afternoon; we blinked with our kids at a kindergarten assembly, and somehow they’d graduated from college.

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When the check comes, she reaches for it, over my objections. “A belated birthday gift,” she says matter-of-factly as she holds the curl of paper over her head, where I couldn’t reach if I jumped.

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I love her for that kind of mischief. And I vow that we shall meet again in a fortnight to celebrate hers.

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Being of the same “vibe” feels like an inadequate explanation as to why friendships like ours endure.  Perhaps the word “enduring” is the key since it could mean “long-lasting” or it could mean “long suffering.”

It is not lost on either of us that, regardless of how long we stretch between meetings, we are in the struggle together. And the conversation will continue as if it never ended the next time. Whenever that is.