Back to the Present (or something like that...)

I've been feeling nostalgic lately. Since the springtime, I had been looking forward to the wedding of my friend Carrie, who was in fact my very best friend during our preteen years, and then recently I reconnected (somewhat - it was just on Facebook) with some old friends from around the same time, all of which has stirred memories of being about 14, when my biggest concerns were who liked who - and, more to the point, who didn't. Of course, back then , those were some pretty intense concerns, and since achieving adulthood, I haven't often wished to replay those years full of girlhood drama, unless it were to take with me some common sense to my younger self. (How many movies have been based on that same premise?) But recently I have been feeling perhaps a little wistful about my preteen and teen days, days that were good and exciting and full of cherishable memories for me, with few (real) cares. And -sniff, sniff - I have been thinking about how much I miss having a true best friend.

So on Saturday, I was thrilled that everything had actually worked out for me to drive down to Charleston (Dave rented a car for me, and he and the kids went up to his brother's wedding - what a great husband!), but as soon as I entered the chapel and saw her brothers - her now grown brothers who didn't know me anymore, and I thought of all the years that have passed, and I felt a twinge of sadness. Perhaps that was a slightly ridiculous way to feel at the moment, as I haven't exactly been robbed of anything in those years, except maybe of the time itself. How could it have gone so fast, and how could Carrie and I be 30 now, both with busy, grown-up lives? I remembered, as I watched her tall, red-headed twin brothers usher the guests, when Carrie and I were just 13 and were both praying desperately for her then-pregnant mother to give her a sister. Carrie had three younger brothers already, and she loved them - but a sister was what she was hoping for, and as her best friend, I hoped passionately with her. Her mom went into labor while were at our monthly homeschool roller-skating day, and I fell asleep that night still waiting to hear. I remember waking up the next morning to the sound of my mom talking on the phone to someone and exclaiming, "Twin boys!" I remember hoping it was just a dream, but there it was. (They turned out to be pretty cute anyway, and two years later, Carrie was in fact gifted with twin sisters!) At any rate, there were those boys, now - gulp - around 17. And the older boys! I remember when the one, the more serious (and thus more tolerable to his older sister and friend), gave the famous Patrick Henry speech at a homeschool end of-the-year-program, and I remembered how another brother used to hide behind chairs and under tables to listen in on our phone calls, and how all her brothers used to tease her good-naturedly about how the funny ways we ended said phone calls and how completely swept away we were by all things romantic. Ah, the days, the days! By the time the ceremony started, I was feeling almost bereft, and my tears when I saw Carrie were mixed. I could have been channeling some of my dramatic former self, of course...

Just before I arrived at the reception not too long after, however, Dave sent me a text about what Chase had just done on the potty, and my mood was instantly and almost magically lifted. Before I walked into the reception, I sent him my enthusiastic response, and I thought about how funny it was that this kind of thing is now what makes my world go round - and I that I like it and don't care if it makes me the stereotypical and Hollywood-mocked mother of young children. Thus happily brought back to the beauty of my present (by Chase's bathroom habits, of all things), I was therefore feeling fairly content at the reception, and it was especially lovely to talk privately with Carrie for a few moments. Even though we only touch base every so often, and aren't part of each other's daily lives anymore, we still love each other dearly, and that's enough. Her new husband seems marvelous, and it was a joy, instead of a rather selfish sadness, to see the rest of her family, grown and happy, even if it was still a little disconcerting to see her little brothers with children of their own!). All is as it should be.

I arrived home hours later to an empty house, since the other wedding was much later in the day, and I had some time to rest and then to tackle some laundry (more of the hum-drum of my current life), but as the evening wore on, I was truly eager to see my darlings. It was late, for them, when they finally arrived, and all remaining traces of yearning for days of yore were erased when I saw Dave and the kids, and the latter threw themselves at me as if we had been separated for a week. Then I lifted a sleeping Chase out of his car seat, and as I held him, I felt him squeeze my neck tightly, and that sealed the deal. I could say that my present truly is a gift, or that there's no place like home...but let's just say that here - and now - is where I really want to be.