Friendly blast from the past leads to a life more examined
Igot a Facebook message from an old friend recently.
Not a friend I stay in close contact with, but a mate from those longago days of university and halls of residence, where people from remote parts of the country were flung together and latched on to kindred spirits with a grateful desperation.
We all secretly worried that we were the greenest and least worldly of the bunch, and so there was a quiet thrill in being accepted by the people who surely had genuine Life Experience.
We were pretty tight through university, he and I, and we flatted together afterwards. We visited each other’s childhood homes, shared profound secrets, and pulled out the decent vodka – an upgrade from our standard Kristov gutrot – when we needed to navigate life’s hiccups, breakdowns and breakups.
No breakups with each other, to be clear – I’m not his type – and that worked out beautifully for both of us for several intense years, until real life and encroaching adulthood took us to different parts of the country, and eventually different parts of the world.
Neither of us is particularly good at nurturing long-distance friendships, and there was an element of needing a fresh start after stumbling through those first years in the adult world. The closeness seeped away.
Out of nowhere, a message pinged on to my phone. He and his partner were going to be travelling through Motueka on a whirlwind trip through the South Island, and he’d love to catch up.
I was delighted, and then suddenly found myself looking at my life from his fresh and untried perspective.
We hadn’t seen each other in more than seven years – a fact I knew precisely, because the last time our paths crossed, I didn’t have any children, and nor did I particularly plan to.
I had been working fulltime in tourism, in a poorly paid but exciting job. My partner and I had just come back from a holiday with friends in Tonga, where we’d lazed about and slept in, and swum with whales, and snorkelled off the nearby wharf. This buddy cherished me as an eccentric traveller and a free spirit (and probably a bit of a flake – but in defence of my 22-year-old self, who wasn’t a bit flaky at that age?).
Fast-forward by most of a decade, and I was grounded in all directions. Grounded and stable, and sometimes a little marooned by the parameters of being a fully-fledged grown-up.
I love my life, but suddenly it looked distinctly suburban.
I make use of my journalism training where time allows, but it would be doing my sisterhood a disservice to discount the fact that my main role by far is that of stay-at-home mum. We have two children. We have a mortgage. My passport has expired.
The brief social media snapshots that I stumbled across in my mindless scrolling told me that he was leading a very different life.
He works in the movie production industry, doing something I don’t understand well enough to try to explain. Travel is a casual side effect of his work, and so his Facebook posts are full of blithe references to Oslo and Greece and Vegas.
His passport most definitely has not expired, whereas I can’t be bothered with the hassle of venturing into Nelson.
He went to see Hamilton in the West End. My last Google search was for the next meeting of Motueka’s Lego Club.
It’s fair to say that our paths have somewhat diverged.
But thankfully, life isn’t Facebook – and underneath it all, he was still himself and I was still myself, and when they arrived, we got on fine.
They met the children, and had the good grace to pretend to be enchanted. They made appreciative noises about our little house with its large yard and its suburban cats and suburban chickens.
We chatted about old times and mutual friends, and I settled back into familiar feelings of pride and satisfaction about what I was doing with my life.
I asked if there were children in their future – which, if I’m honest, was probably my way of gauging whether there was anything about my lifestyle that he coveted.
‘‘We’re thinking about trying for a puppy,’’ was his well-practised riposte.
It was wonderful to see him, and there’ll always be a spare bed ready if he’s passing through our region again. The ribbons of our lives unfurled in different directions, but the original ties are still there.
Next time, however, I won’t be worrying about what my life looks like compared to his. When it comes down to it, I don’t really want his life, any more than he wants mine. And I’ll get around to renewing my passport when the time is right.
The ribbons of our lives unfurled in different directions, but the original ties are still there.