Big Giant Mindfuck of the Week

The weather here this weekend was unusually nice, so yesterday my mom and I headed west in search of comfortable walking shoes and other London necessities. We hit the outlet mall in Aurora and the swanky outdoor mall in Geneva, where we stopped into the Williams Sonoma store in search of free samples. I believe I was expounding on the fact that the mini-cake pan set in the shape of assorted bugs and butterflies was one of two reasons I've come up with in favor of having children (the other being a rocking sheep that I once spied at a Pier One store), when I heard someone say "Oh my God," and possibly my name, and I turned around to find my long-lost maid of honor/childhood best friend.

I always sort of knew I'd run into her someday. And I always sort of knew, despite the dramatic scenarios I'd half-imagined, that she'd say exactly what (I think) she said: "I haven't talked to you in such a long time!"

Yeah. Four and a half years is a long time. Long enough that my face froze and my jaw dropped and I was physically unable to speak for about thirty seconds.

Maybe I was waiting for the apology that I still, however irrationally, I feel I deserve. I have obsessed about the loss of this friendship almost since our last conversation (Nov. 5, 2003, in case you were wondering). I dreamed about it--just ask my former therapist. I vacillated between thinking, "That's just how she is" and wondering what terrible thing I'd inadvertently done to turn her against me. I composed unwritten letters variously asking that question and catching her up on my life since we last talked. I stopped sending birthday and anniversary cards a year or two in, after M. Defarge told me I was frankly being pathetic.

And then there she was, at the mall, with her parents, looking and sounding and acting pretty much exactly the same as she did four and a half years ago, completely glossing over her total silence during that time. She lives in Chicago, not far from my brother. She has a retail job in the city. She and her husband are no longer together.

I think the thing that crushed me was when she said, "Are you still in Oak Park? I used to do my grocery shopping there. I was in Oak Park all the time. I always figured I'd run into you."

How serendipitous, huh? Why not ignore the phone messages and birthday cards with my new address and phone number and leave it to fate to bring us together in the grocery store? So what if it takes a few years?

So we chatted for awhile and exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses and talked about getting together for lunch. Today I wish I'd said, the ball is in your court. If it's important enough to you, then call me. But I didn't think of it then.

A week ago or a month ago I would have said that all I wanted from this friendship was closure, one last encounter so I could put the whole thing behind me. I guess I got that, but now I just feel shell-shocked.