To Roll or To Turn

Evolve. New to town but finally we are staying for a while. First friendships form in the classroom, with anyone; everyone. Will you play with me? Everything is fun with no care about who plays with who. All interests are both the same and different, but it doesn’t matter. Just suggest it and away we go. The simplest times of our lives pave the way for future complexity. We all make it work. 

Little whispers, lots of giggles. Spring has gifted us with a colorful variety of blooms to choose from. Peanut butter and jelly. Popcorn, with no salt, in a coffee filter. This is fun and we aren’t worried about anything. 

Involve. Flashlight tag, riding bikes until dark, all day Barbie days. Favorite Disney movies.  What did you get for Christmas? Building forts in a cow pasture. Dressing up our dogs. Doing makeup and hair. Swimming in the bathtub, the fish pond, the irrigation ditch, finally a pool. So fancy. Sidewalk chalk, bubbles, cartwheels. You’re it!  Sleepovers every night. We exhaust ourselves. We slumber in forts, on hide-a-beds, in driveway and tents. It doesn’t matter where as long as we are together. 

We talk until one person falls asleep. Summers are warm as the feelings we have for each other. That is cheesy. Pizza, homemade. Best friends “4eva” never felt so good

Revolve. We know everything about each other. All of our likes and dislikes, crushes. Favorite foods. We know the coolest songs and we are afraid to sing them at the top of our lungs. Our parents are endlessly delighted. Holding up the phone line with endless conversations -- even though we just saw each other. When we are apart we write letters to fill the time. Tirelessly scrawling the smallest minutia of our days.  Listening to cassettes, then CDs. Alanis, Jewel, absolutely No Doubt. Later we will listen to dudes, but not now. This classmate did that. What to wear. Who will see. Books we read. Movies and TV we watch. We share these things. Dances, sports, driving fast, being naughty. We do what we do to keep it real. What’s mine is yours. Once in a while we struggle. We fight. We are too similar. We also want the same dramatic roles and the same alluring people. It’s good but it can be tricky. We are always in each other’s orbit but the gravity of each situation threatens to pull us apart. Personalities and interests do too. 

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We talk when we can. Fall leaves change colors and so do we. Taco Bell burritos with extra onions; Shari’s Strawberry milkshakes with fries for dipping. Small moments growing in significance. 

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Devolve. Off on new exciting adventures. Who knew this whole world was out here? We call each other and describe what we see. New friends. Let me tell you about them. New performance. Come see me. New interests. I wonder if you like this too? But soon learn you don’t. New relationships last longer than before. Time spent talking to you is now spent talking to him. One moves while the other stays still. One dances while the other sits. One climbs up as the other slides down. One makes black plans and the other makes white ones. Grey moments exist albeit infrequently. We get together for big events and remember how much we care for each other. The expansive history we share takes on deeper meaning. The commonalities, still there, have matured. Marriages, new homes, big trips, careers, children, aging parents, struggling siblings. These things bring us together again as much as they also keep us apart.  

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We plan intentional visits to catch up. Winters was my last name when you first knew me. That has changed like everything else. It is the strangest feeling to have become regimented. We meet in between and share a meal. With less time together the moments seem even more important.

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Absolve. We are not who we used to be. Carefree and self-centered. “Us”-centered. Living in the moment. We have too much responsibility for that now. Everything is planned and scheduled. A whim involves lining up childcare. We have grown and matured. In moments of calm we reminisce about how it used to be, who we used to be, who was there for us. Guilt flares about where we left things. We SHOULD text, we SHOULD call, we SHOULD reach out more than we do. But now we are just “shoulding” all over ourselves and what does that accomplish? Let’s release ourselves from the shame and the blame. With every season there is change. Nothing is as it was. We choose to reach out when we can and we choose to be ok with not hearing from one another. We are in the prime of our lives but it will slow down eventually. Spring will come back around.

Love.

Love will keep us together.

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Erin is a wife and a mother of three children, a crochet fiber artist and an avid reader of unabashedly spicy romance. She just completed her 15th year as a special education teacher. She’s dabbled in writing fan fiction and would like to explore writing more.

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