No longer in passing

Earlier this week I received an email from classmates saying that I have a message. Naturally my curiosity is peaked and I quickly click on the icon. I mean really, who is the world could possibly be writing? It's been 22 years, count them 1983 to present....man oh man! I opened the email and knew immediately who it was, I even recalled who she was dating at the time. She asked a few questions, made mention of our brothers and then asked me if I remembered them at all. Well, SURE I remember. Our brothers were great friends in high school, worked together, took trips and even roomed together in college. I remember, but how correctly? That is the question.

Of course our brothers friendship really had nothing to do with us. Friends? I don' t know. We knew of each other in passing. In school, probably ended up at some of the same parties and we think even a concert was attended together. So we did have some sort of a relationship, I'm just not sure what. I have to admit that getting an email from someone that you're not sure you knew when you knew them was different, in the fun and exciting sense of course. I felt a bit strange but after reading the note that was perfectly friendly, curious and maybe a tad nervous, I couldn't wait to respond. Feeling nervous myself I set out typing.

Where we spent four years getting to know ourselves and each other.

I typed and typed and typed, please just ask Colleen. I though for sure she would come back and say "oops, wrong person, please disregard previous email, I think I was looking for someone else." But she didn't. I answered questions the best that I could recall from back then and was happy to fill in the gaps. Ranging all from family, to children, careers, marriage and where we live. It's amazing to talk to someone that you haven't seen in YEARS and do so as though there was no time lapse at all. Being high school teenage girls getting to know each other is completely different than two women, with families of their own learning about one another. We have an extraordinary ease in our conversation together (via email) and have more in common now then we could have ever had then. Stay at home Mom's, two children each, living outside of Florida, share a similar sense of humor, amazing husbands and our most important common thread is our faith. It seems as we've grown older our faith has become priority and something that is active in our lives.

It's been a great week getting reacquainted or maybe even acquainted for the first time with someone that I never really knew. This time I plan to pay closer attention and not allow it to become something that is "just in passing."

"I only had a high school education and believe me, I had to cheat to get that"

-Sparky Anderson