yeah, that'll happen

About two weeks ago at my birthday dinner I "ran into" an old friend. Actually, she would have probably never even noticed me despite being at the table right next to ours, and despite the five waiters loudly singing happy birthday to me. I nudged her on her elbow right in the middle of an animated conversation with her sister. We were the best of friends our freshman and sophomore years in high school. Then, though we never had an official "falling out", we just kind of grew apart, and neither of us did much about it. She made some close friends in her drama circles, I kind of stayed my "loner" self that I had always been, with many friends of varied interests, if you will. In any case, I still greatly admire this friend, I think she is lovely, and I still believe we are kindred spirits, as we always referred to ourselves in 9th and 10th grade. We wrote notes, illustrated notes to each other everyday. Oh, the notes we wrote! The good laughs we had. We doodled for each other. I wish we still had those drawings! She was a very talented artist, and though she did not pursue that interest in college, I think she could still become a children's book illustrator. Her notes were far better illustrated than mine ever were.

It took a lot of guts for me to "out" myself after Kevin had spotted her (ironically, Kevin knew her through some other friends before Kevin and I ever knew each other) because of my tendency to shyness, and I felt awkward interrupting her perfectly nice family dinner. But I did anyway. She was ever so nice about it. She and her sisters are all extremely BEAUTIFUL. And I mean those all-caps. And I wish I would have told them that right then and there, because I don't know that I will get the chance again. They all looked so lovely. It was great to catch up, if only briefly. She got my email address and said she would add me to her messenger list. Visions of renewed friendship started dancing in my head, which was exciting for a brief moment. She has two children now, so I didn't expect her to email me right away, but it's been nearly two weeks now, and I don't expect she will ever add me. It makes me a little sad, as it did when we grew apart in high school. Part of me wants to be all sarcastic and think I should have said, "yeah, that'll happen," when she offered to email me. "You really wanted to talk to me, didn't you?" But I will give her the benefit of the doubt--maybe she lost the email address. Maybe she forgot. Maybe one of her babies is deathly ill. My typical tendency is to think that she got my email address and said she would email me just to be nice (poor, pathetic girl that I am) and after I left, she quickly threw it away from her and said to her husband, "boy, am I glad we got rid of her. What a moron. I can't believe I was ever friends with that nerd." For a while I thought maybe I should have gotten HER email address, but maybe it's better this way, because if she really does want contact me, she can, and if she doesn't, she doesn't have to.