Reconnecting with Friends Gone Foul

Chris Kirk was my roommate freshman year of college. We ended up together after she swooped in and saved me from my randomly-appointed roommate, Sue, who declared Holly Hobbies, horses and shopping among her interests. I don’t remember what I wrote back to her that summer before college, but I’m sure my response included no references to Holly Hobbies, horses or shopping.

Things went south pretty quickly for me and Sue. It was immediately apparent that I was much more interested in socializing than studying and would go to all lengths and hours to achieve my goal.

Apparently, I was as messy then as my kids are now. One day I came home from Consumer Math class to find a note taped to my mirror:

Please clean up your side of the room. I don’t like living in a pig sty.

When I shared the note with my friend Chris Kirk, she was outraged and immediately declared war. She arrived at my room with a roll of masking tape and taped a line from door to window, dividing the room in half.

“You can do whatever you want with your side of the room,” she said.

Shortly afterwards, Sue and I decided to part ways. It was an amicable divorce because, despite my slovenly ways, I was still a good person at heart. Not to mention a fun friend to have.  Chris Kirk moved in and shortly thereafter regretted her charitable “You can do whatever you want with your side of the room,” comment. She also rued the day she ever agreed to live with someone who insisted on sleeping with the windows wide open in 25 degree winters.

That freshman year of college we did a lot of fun things. Once we filled a bucket with water, leaned it precariously against our RA’s door, knocked and ran, flooding the room when she opened the door. We took all the contents of our across-the-hall friends’ room, including furniture, and set it up in the lobby for them to stumble upon as they returned from night class. We were pack animals, the six of us, eating processed chicken patties together in the college dining hall every single night, loudly flirting with the kitchen staff who were fortunate enough to get work study hours and barging into house parties en masse.

One Friday night after coming home from The Fort much later and much louder than my roommate, I donned my blue-flowered Lanz of Salzburg floor-length nightgown and crawled into bed without turning on the lights. After all, as you may have deduced, I was nothing if not a considerate roommate. I lay my head on the pillow, stretched out my legs in that final sigh-releasing breath, eager to pass out into a seamlessly dreamless sleep. And then I screamed. Bloody murder. I jumped up, flinging my sheets off my bed, hopping around the room barefoot in shocked revulsion.

It wasn’t long until the rest of the posse gathered in my room, cackling hysterically over the concoction Chris had created to line my sheets. It was a nice gooey mixture of shaving cream and pencil shavings with a little bit of crushed pretzel crumbs added in for texture. We were still finding remnants of dried shaving cream on the stucco block walls well into the spring.

We were inseparable, the six of us. We partied too much, studied too little and got ourselves in too much trouble for doing inappropriate things with inappropriate substances and inappropriate people. Our parents would have been very disappointed in us, had we not been such good liars. And so good at self-redemption.

By the end of our second year of college, half of us were gone. We transferred, quit or put our educations on hold. But we promised that we would always and forever remain the best of friends.

From that year forward, we established the Annual All Girls’ Christmas Party, a mandatory gathering for an overnight the first Saturday in December. We would rotate houses so we only had to host one-and-a-half times a decade and as we got married and had kids, the families would be required to vacate the premises for 24 hours. Our get-togethers have evolved into three-day weekends held at random times in the year, but we have done some version of the Annual All Girls' Christmas Party every single year since 1975.

And then, about 15 years ago, something happened.

There was some kind of phone call. Some kind of nasty words exchanged. Some kind of hurt feelings. Some kind of “If you can’t accept me for who I am…” With some kind of “Fine, then don’t come!”

We never saw Chris Kirk again.

But, social media has some kind of uncanny power to reconnect the unconnectible. As the years went by, Chris and I friended and followed and watched our families grow. We gave each other thumbs ups and likes and smiley face emojis and made many empty promises that we’d get together soon.

Last month, I found a long message from Chris, filled with toils and tribulations of parenthood and grandparenthood, sitting in my inbox.

“You just never know what the hell is around the bend in life,” she wrote. "Let's not give up on trying to get together."

Something about that sentiment touched my heart and I responded with a resounding, “I’m coming to see you.”

And I did.

We talked and laughed and reminisced, reminding each other why we became friends in the first place. And as we hashed out the foggy details of the demise of our friendship, neither one of us could justify why, since the blow up hadn’t been between her and me, we let life happen instead of mending fences with the first broken rail.

Chris Kirk hasn’t changed a bit. She looks exactly the same as she did the day I met her in Harley Hall. She laughs with the same gusto. Enthuses with the same passion. Cleans with the same vigor. And is the same size she was when she was 18 years-old. 

As I hopped back into the Old Minivan, I got that old familiar lump in my throat that I get when I say goodbye to people I love.

“We’ll get together again, soon!” we promised.

And this time, I know we will.

Because, after all,  you just never know what the hell is around the bend in life.

Why Can't We Just Accept a Compliment?

“I love the color of your hair!” the bare-breasted, middle-aged woman in the gym locker room gushed as I was making my wet-headed escape after Aquacize class last week. “It’s beautiful.”

It’s hard for me to go anywhere in life without using it as a launching ground for making new friends. But, I have long prided myself on my self-imposed solitary social confinement at the gym. If I added chatting to my workout routine, I’d be killing half a day rather than half a morning on the obsessive exercise that seems to have absolutely no effect on my ever-growing girth. So, I was a bit taken aback when the long-haired, butt-naked woman confronted me in the locker room.

“Oh, thanks!” I said. “I pay enough for it!”

Thinking to myself, you have no idea what I go through at the beauty parlor.

“It’s beautiful,” she reiterated.

“Well it is pretty much my natural color, but it is definitely dyed.”

“It looks so soft,” she continued.

“Soft?” I said, involuntarily patting down my coarse, spiky locks. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said yet again.

“Ha!” I said. “You made my day.”

Before I reached the end of the aisle and before I was able to answer that inner voice that asked, “How can she even tell what color my hair is? It’s soaking wet!” I heard her turn to the woman at the locker next to her.

“Why couldn’t she just accept the compliment and say, thank you?”

Now, equally as important to me as my need to make friends is my need to not be misunderstood. So, so many random things come out of my mouth that I can’t possibly keep track of all of them, and thus, spend a good chunk of my life retracting them. So I almost turned around to address her behind-the-back, under-the-breath comment, but caught myself. Because, no doubt, I would explain my way right into a coffee date with her. And I don’t drink coffee.

But, the thing is, I DID accept the compliment. And, I DID say thank you.

And, that’s why I’ve been obsessing about it ever since.

I’m not the kind of person who can just say thank you and move on. After all, what kind of conversation would that be? In my mind, it’s just way too dismissive. Even if dismissive is the message I’m looking to project in the rare instances when I’m not trying to expand my stable of friends.

If the tables were turned and I said, for instance, “I like the positive body-image you radiate,” and she had simply responded, “Thank you,” I’d be thinking that she had something stuck up an exposed body part.

But, when I brought this up while playing Mahjong the other night, my friend Janice said, “It’s true. Women have a hard time accepting compliments.”

“On another note,” I said, shoving a spoonful of a low-carb cauliflower-rice casserole into my pie hole. “This is delicious.”

“Thanks, but I think it needs to be spicier.”

Ha! Case in point.

Which got us talking, as we turned our tiles, about why we can’t just be like the guys and accept compliments, forgive our foibles and stop apologizing for our shortcomings.

While I don’t come out and say the actual words too often, I say “I’m sorry” in other ways. If I do something apology-worthy, I will attempt to explain my behavior, delving into my past, my present and my future to justify what came out of my mouth, my oven or my womb. I’ll keep hammering the point home until the offendee ends up apologizing to me, feeling so bad that I feel so bad, or more likely just to shut me up.

Janice, says “I’m sorry,” all the time. And she really is. She has a heart bigger than the both of us, and these days, that’s pretty big. She’s sorry when she’s late. She’s sorry when she’s early. She’s sorry when she has a sad tale to tell and she’s sorry when she wins at Mahjong. And that’s really the only apology I’ll accept. I am sorry I’m not more like Janice.

Susan, the other Mahjonger, is not quite as apologetic as the two of us. She is truly sorry when life gives us lemons, and feels love and loss way deeper than I ever will. But she is tougher. She doesn’t beat herself up over her looks or her words or her actions. I’d love to be Susan.

As Janice won another game and I ate another handful of Stacy’s Pita Chips, for which we were both sorry, we continued conversing about why it is that we can’t just be.

We conceded that when someone tells a guy they like his sweater, he either just says ‘thanks,’ or more likely, ‘yeah, I do, too.’ If someone says the same thing to a woman, they tend to respond more on the lines of, ‘I got it on the discount rack,’ or ‘Really? Doesn’t it make me look fat?’

Sure, I know plenty of women who are oozing with confidence. Who can throw a dinner party without worry. Who show their curves with courage. Who can accept a compliment without controverting.

Those women give me something to aspire towards. So, while I’m working on becoming the me I’d like to be, I can try to respond to the body-beautiful women who covet my hair color with a simple “Thank You.”

And keep the rest of the commentary to myself.

I can try. 

But, the bottom line is, it ain’t me, babe. No, no, no, it ain’t me.

When in Doubt ... Dance

I’m the first to admit, I'm stone-cold tone deaf.

But I try.

Long ago, I discovered a soft-covered piano book filled with old-time songs and show tunes, hidden amongst hundreds of hardback books in the den of my childhood home. Why we had it, I don’t know – we had neither a piano nor a singer in the family. But, I can still picture the eight-year-old me sitting on the couch, with that book open on my lap, teaching myself to read music. I’d follow the notes with my finger and belt out the lyrics with satisfying confidence. But, the first time I heard a real rendition of Camptown Ladies Sing this Song, Doo-dah, Doo-dah, I was utterly destroyed by the disparity between my version of the song and what was real.

Still, I was able to fake my way into the children’s choir at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church. I loved the camaraderie, the burgundy-colored robes, the musty-smelling hymnals and watching the congregation squirm and snore from the perches of the choir loft. My tenure as a tenor was nearly thwarted when, at rehearsal one Thursday, the choir director was baffled by a grossly distorted execution of Onward Christian Soldiers. As he had us sing together one row at a time, in hopes of unearthing the off-key culprit, I quickly learned the fine art of lip syncing, thus saving my vantage point behind the altar.

As an adult, I am obsessed with the reality music shows. I’m jumping for joy that American Idol is returning and have watched every single season of The Voice. I text my friends, Laura and Jean throughout the show, asking who is better, Addison or Esera. My spouse, who thinks they’re all screamers, won’t engage me in such folly, still shocked that I can’t tell the difference between pitchy and powerful performances, shaking his head in dismay that even the worst interpretations of Landslide can always win my heart.

I can’t sing. Nor can I dance.

For a short time in my twenties, before Patty became Penny, we frequented a bar in Ambler, Pennsylvania. It was an after-hours dance club for those of us who had the energy to keep on going after the bars closed at 2 am. Late one night, or rather, early one morning, my dream came true and I met a handsome prince who dragged me to the dance floor and subsequently left me there.

“You have absolutely no rhythm, do you?” he said and walked away in disgust.

Up until that moment, I hadn’t realized that my flailing and stomping on the dance floor was any different from the moves I saw on American Bandstand. Or, that there was any correlation between having rhythm and finding love. 

“Oh, dear,” said Patty when I revealed to her my distorted perception of my dance moves. She knew it was time for an intervention and spent many hours spinning vinyl, coaching me to feel the bass, clap to the beat, move to the music. It was futile. She moved to Florida. And I gave up dancing.

I shuffled my way through Elton John’s Your Song at my wedding and couldn’t resist joining the neighborhood gang as we rocked out to Love Shack at Bob and Michelle’s marital celebration in Ocean City, but other than that have spent much of my adult life in fear of being dragged to the dance floor.

Which leads me to last Saturday night.

Over the past dozen years, I’ve been to more life or death events of the Apreda family than I can count. This one was easy – a simple dinner in honor of Mike and Kristen’s engagement – a happy occasion made happier by witnessing the head-over-heels love and hope and joy that only a bride-to-be and groom-in-waiting can exude.

I had a ball bantering with the kids who were no longer kids but wage-earning, change-effecting, parent-pleasing conversationalists. I promised one of my all-time favorites a place at the altar with my favorite daughter. I conspired with another one on how to win back an old girlfriend I had known and loved. And I caught up with the abundance of Apreda friends and family members I hadn’t seen since Poppy’s wake.

And then, Theresa, the mother of Mike and future mother-in-law of Kristen, made a speech.

All I heard, because remember, I’ve heard a lot of these speeches, was, “So make sure you dance!”

That’s when I knew the fun and games were over.

“Oh, come on!” my friend Karen chided, later in the night. “This is the kind of music you danced to in West Virginia!”

Sure enough, it wasn’t Drake or Chance the Rapper or Rihanna blaring from the speakers, but The Marshall Tucker Band, The Allman Brothers and a little bit of the timeless tune, Happy, thrown in for good measure.  The kind of music I would consider dancing to, if indeed, I were to dance.

So, when Kool and the Gang commanded me to Celebrate Good Times! I let Karen lead me to the dance floor where I stomped and clapped and waved my arms, watching her every move to know when to make mine.

I have to admit, I had a good time, letting loose and flailing those limbs. I actually thought that I had, at long last, graciously and gracefully mastered the art of dance.

And for awhile, after the wine wore off and the music died, I harbored nothing but warm and fuzzy feelings about the fun-filled frenzy and the love that sustained it. I looked forward to dancing at Mike and Kristen’s wedding and texted, asking them to move the date up a year. I could hardly wait for another Apreda life or death event.

And then came the ultimate buzz kill. Cousin Kimberly tagged me on Facebook, posting proof positive of what I had done. I flipped through the pictures and smiled. And then read the comments.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who can’t dance! quipped Kevin.

I haven’t seen Kevin in 25 years. And so, I can’t help but wonder if this former West Virginia University housemate of mine could really tell from those still life photos that I had no rhythm. Or, if in fact, he was simply remembering with fondness, the me I used to be.