By Krisha Williams

The party

Posted April 6, 2008

We discovered makeup and boys together and hadn't until last February spoken in almost a decade. She was my best friend for about eight years, but we lost touch. The bachelorette party brought us together again.

Another friend, who's from Memphis, showed up with barbecue. She was my best friend in college and taught my hick self that computers are our friends and that if you can imagine it, you can do it.

Then there was my buddy from the years I lived in Northwest Arkansas: She's a social butterfly and a master caps player; I am not. But I had to play.

It was surreal seeing the three of them with the friends I have today. All of them are strong, smart ladies different in their own ways. It's a particular pleasure when you introduce one friend to another and they hit it off. You feel happy that someone you think is wonderful clicks with someone else you think is great.

So the party was pretty tame, which is what I wanted. We talked and laughed and ate and drank. We took off our shoes and changed into our PJs and pretended to be kids again at a slumber party.

It was wonderful, but how old I feel! And how it brings home the importance of keeping in touch. For me, it makes change easier to process, a way to metabolize life. Though I'm still prone to waking up and freaking out over the passing of time, the getting from yesterday, so warm and familiar, to today, so urgent and alien.

It's good to know where you've been because we forget the whole story of our lives, so wrapped up in the story going on now. Bringing in old friends offers a pleasing, roundness to life, so that we're not so likely to be set adrift.

Comments on this entry

To report an inappropriate comment email kwilliams@arkansasonline.com