After a bit of shuffling and running around like crazy,
we ended up at an old Italian dive just the two of us with our girl. It was so
much fun and brought me back to so many good old memories.
It’s a fast food Italian resto in the heart of downtown
that serves basically one delicious food. Sausage subs, with fried onions and
mounds of coleslaw. Tomatoes and hot sauce on a toasted bun full of the most delicious
sausage in the world. 6 inch or 12 inches with a beer or a diet coke. You couldn’t
order a salad at this place if you tried. It was packed.
It has been more than a decade or so that Hubby and I had
been there. We were so happy to share this with our little girl. It got us all nostalgic
and we took her and us down memory lane that evening. Such good memories. We
talked about all these memories with Beauty and the conversations seemed to
continue on an off all weekend.
It was couple friends of ours who introduced us to this
place. We went with them often-it was “our” place. The is before kids….before
our lives got busier and busier and we saw them often. Very different than us,
totally different backgrounds jobs, personalities and lives, but there was something
that bonded the four of us very tightly. They were on many levels the sweetest
people we have ever come across, big and generous hearts.
They are now divorced and went through a really hard and
bitter time. They share custody of their children. At one point the husband wrote
us a letter apologizing about some of the stuff that happened during some of
the times when our friendship became more distant, (he struggled with issues
that really clouded his behaviour and judgment for a number of years that was
unknown to us) explaining what he was going through the time. We never
answered him for many many different reasons
(much too personal for this blog) I regretted that now sitting at
Momeso’s…I should have written him back. What is wrong with us? How could
anyone not properly acknowledge such a letter? Yes of course it was much more complex
than just our busy lives-but really there is no excuse.
And his ex-wife remained closer to us over the years-she has drifted in and out of our lives
over the years..always with her initiating and trying. We have been there but
on and off and not consistently as friends should be. We are not even sure if
she remarried this year-how pathetic we are. We have moved on, so have they. But eating that submarine
there on Friday, my heart ached for them, for that tie in our lives. For that
time before kids when our friendships were chosen less on our schedules, our
careers, the activities our kids are in and how old they are. We were drawn to friends
because of who they are and were and who we were. Friendship was based much more on instinct
back then.
I love my life now ..I would never go back. I love being
a Mom and having kids and love all of the friendships we have in our lives..but
I do miss some of those more carefree and instinctual times too. Eating that
sub that night made me realise that when friends change, when distance is met,
a part of ourselves is also left behind. Important pieces of who we are. I was
reminded of that as we bit into those mouth-watering delicious sandwiches and
thought back to the couple that we had shared them with often on Friday nights.
So we took Beauty further into our memories and described
the friends and couples we were closest to at that time of our lives. Some have
moved, some have divorced, some have remarried, and some have gone on to have
more children.
Beauty asked us a simple question “The couple you came to
this restaurant with-are they still your friends?”
That was a tough one to answer. Here I had been
reflecting part of the week on friendship and how important friendship was to
me, and yet I let the Momeso couple (well now not a couple but still two
wonderful individuals) slip completely thought my fingertips For many many
reasons.
But none
of them really good enough.
Their lives became complex, our lives became complex. We
changed, they changed. We got busy, they got busy. They made choices, we made
choices.They spilt up. We are still together.
But eating that meal, at that place-it all really did not
even matter. I thought that I hoped that those two friends somehow could know
or feel that we were thinking about them. And that even though things have
moved on…that when we went back to “our” place…we thought of “them”.
With huge smiles on our faces that would last us a lifetime.
It’s funny in life, (and we always tell our kids this)
how life has a way of bringing you back to the lessons that need to be learnt. You
may think you can run and hide……but you can’t. There is no escaping.
You will always come full circle to exactly where you are
meant to me. Like it or not-life has a way of setting you straight. Often- if you are lucky enought-through delicious submarines.
