Drinks and Double Standards

“Hey my brother said that a girl started working at his bar that says she was best friends with for years but hasn’t seen you in a while. Her name is ____________. You know who he is talking about?”

Immediately I pick up the phone and call the friend that sent that text to me.

Oh my GOD yes I know who that is! When is she working again?

Tonight.

I HAVE TO GO THERE! You wanna go for a drink tonight?

Sure.

 

The phone call I made was to my oldest friend. My first friend. The girl I shyly approached and asked to be my friend the first day of kindergarten. Here we are 27 years later… still friends. There have been times throughout the years that we have lost touch, parted ways but we always find our back to each other. When we do we can pick up the phone no matter how much time has passed and talk like it was yesterday. So drinks it is.  Drinks at 8 mean that I need to get at least the littlest of my boys to bed by 7:30 which will give me 20 minutes to get myself together. This way my husband only has to “babysit” two of the kids since Rylan is down for the night. “Babysitting” all of three of the boys would be too much a task to ask.

Funny that my husband calls it babysitting. That word to me implies that you will be caring for someone else’s children. I assure all three boys share his DNA. They are in fact his children. I have the kids with me all day every day. If my husband has some where to go he just goes. He doesn’t ask me to “babysit” it is understood that I will be with the kids. On the other hand if I have some where to go…. What do you mean you have somewhere to go? Who’s gonna watch the kids? How long are you going to be gone? Do I have to feed them??? When I am out without the kids and I tell someone they are home with their dad some will even say “how nice he is watching them for you” I want to say to every one of those people… really is it that nice of him? THEY ARE HIS KIDS. When my husband uses the word ‘babysitting” I want to “politely” remind him THEY ARE YOUR KIDS! Why the double standard? I know I am their mom and I enjoy caring for them but doesn’t a girl deserve a break? A night out without watching the clock because the babysitter is waiting to get off duty?

I pick my oldest friend up at 8:00 and it is pouring. Not just rain. Torrential downpour. For god sake even Mother Nature is telling me to stay home and take care of my kids! I’m not listening. I am dressed. My hair is pointlessly flat ironed. My makeup is done. The littlest of my boys has been put to bed early. This mom is going out. Even if it is to a hole in the wall bar to see a ghost from my past. We get to the bar and I see my old high school friend. She doesn’t recognize me and had I not known that she was the bartender chances are I would not have immediately recognized her. Life had taken us in polar opposite directions. I knew from things I had heard through the grape vine over the years that the roads she had taken were rough and that life had not afforded her the same opportunities and good fortune it had offered to me.

She brought us our drinks and was making small talk when I saw it in her face. She knew who I was. She crawled over the top of the bar to hug me. She held me tight and went on about how much she had missed me. Told me whenever anyone mentioned they were from my hometown that she would tell them her best friend lived there. It was an unexpected bittersweet reunion.   I had missed her too. Wondered about her all these years. Always knowing that we had parted ways because we were heading in different directions to lives that did not resemble one another. The things that we had in common were not enough for our paths to keep crossing like they did with other friends. I was happy to see her. I was also sad knowing that this night was probably one of the only few times I would ever see her again. We reminisced and promised to keep in touch. Both of us knowing that was a lie.

Some friendships just aren’t meant to last forever. Most will be just for a season. Circumstances change and so do you and for some reason the friends that you once had no longer seem to fit. My high school best friend and I don’t fit anymore. That doesn’t lessen the friendship and bond that we once shared. Even the friends that come and go often take up a forever space in our heart. Sitting at a bar between with these two very different friends made me appreciate my oldest friend that much more. A friendship that can last a life time is a rare find.  

 

 

 

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