By Mary Kay Roth
We piled into Pam’s SUV one early wintry morning several weeks ago, ready for a road trip, three of us hauling suitcases, laptops and memories.
I swear I couldn’t see anyone’s wrinkles – but instead, a trio of young, giggling girls sitting cross legged upon Yvonne’s shag-covered basement floor with our turntable and 45’s, singing along as The Monkees crooned “I’m a Believer.”
We had all lived within a block of one another, growing up in south Lincoln, with real roller skates and skinned knees, tether balls and Twister, tassel-bedecked bicycle handlebars and high-heeled Barbies, ridiculous duck-and-cover drills for possible nuclear war – Dick and Jane.
Coming together in fifth grade, our glossy class photograph displays eager little girls dressed in jumpers, pinafores and head bands, standing primly with hands folded before us.
Now, more than half a century later, forever finished with pinafores and headbands, we are a rowdy bunch, rolling down the highway and headed for five days at Pam’s Colorado condo.
Our first ever trip together: Pam. Yvonne. Mary Kay.
Strangely enough, we are all single now, some widowed, others divorced. Two of us have children, grandchildren. One of us flies solo.
These days, between us, we sport hearing aids, hip replacements and wonky backs. Two of us are cancer survivors. But we are generally healthy, darned lucky.
And man alive, we can still laugh, smiling over who we once were – and who we have become.
In Colorado we cooked meals and danced to bubblegum oldies, hiked trails and lit fires, lost our cellphones so many times we got giddy over calling one another to find them. Pam was amidst a major move, constantly answering calls from contractors. Yvonne faced the daunting task of clearing out her childhood home.
Meanwhile, I was simply a bit distracted and muddled, looking for balance in this topsy turvy world, accidentally locking myself out of Pam’s condo one cold and early morning – then waking up everyone so I could get back inside. We made coffee and sat together in dawn’s light.
You know, I am blessed with so many dear and precious family and friends who fill my life with love and wisdom.
But those deep and everlasting friendships are as deliciously exquisite as the last page in your favorite book.
Serving as connection and comfort, they offer rare insight into recollections that stretch back for decades. Old friends hold up a mirror so we can see the reflection of who we are and where we came from.
Pam, Yvonne and I know one another in a way no other three woman can. And what’s even more amazing, we like each other anyway.
We know about first crushes, first dates, first sex.
We have puzzled out pink diaries with flimsy, delicate padlocks – fumbled over our choices in acne cream, eventually in birth control.
We have clung to one another through a childhood and adolescence filled with race riots and assassinations, Watergate and a wildly unpopular war, the birth of rock-and-roll and first walks on the moon.
We all made some questionable choices in our teens. When we were 21, one of us lost a mother, another lost a brother. We all made some questionable choices as we aged.
Yet we survived, somehow safe in our middle-class cocoon of comfort. We grew up in a world where white bread and white milk were delivered to our doors, moms collected green stamps and dads earned the living.
On summer nights, we squeezed as many teens as possible into a Volkswagen bug – and cruised past cute boys’ houses playing “Knock Three Times…” On beautiful fall evenings, we dressed up in dreadful pep club outfits to cheer for the football team. Otherwise, our preferred uniforms were bell bottoms and, oh my god, platform shoes.
Inevitably, of course, we went our separate ways, parted by changing geography, career choices and spouse choices, life’s predictable distractions.
Yet … here we were in Colorado, connected by and brought together by slender but powerful threads of hometown and collective experience.
I think we were somewhat surprised at how much we didn’t know about one another’s journeys. But perhaps we were just as surprised by how many ways our paths had intersected.
We had traded in our Princess phones for cell phones. We all took typing class and almost immediately were tossed into a dazzling, sometimes overwhelming world of ever-changing technology.
We attended school with almost no black students in our class, shocked into reality decades later with George Floyd and “Caste.”
And, yes, we voted for the same woman in the last Presidential election, but feel a bit lost in a country we no longer recognize – but perhaps a country we really never fully knew.
On the last night of vacation, we went out to dinner and talked of dreams we had lost track of – dreams we had simply lost. Friends we had lost track of – friends we had simply lost.
We wondered how the three of us had ever come together … whether childhood friendships happen randomly, by choice.
Then we drank more wine and decided we just didn’t care.
Today we are three very different women who have made very different life choices – with surprising blessings never imagined as young girls.
And thank goodness we still have one another, forever connected by saddle shoes and The Monkees – by shared tears and shared joy.
Thanks to Pam and Yvonne, I have an abiding friendship with roots that run deep, a solid point of reference to face the coming years … with perhaps a few more promised slumber parties in our future to help us make it through the night.
