Many years ago, up in New England, I was a paramedic for a private ambulance service. I was young then, and the world of emergency medical services was exciting. We weren’t so very regulated then, and we worked hard, but we played hard too. I made some life long friends there during my years there, and had some friendships turn adversarial too. I cringe when I think about how young we were, and of some of the things that we, and I, myself did. Fortunately for me, this was all before the age of cellphones and cameras everywhere, so our exploits have all been saved to (fortunately) fallible memory.
One of those friends of mine was named Samantha – we used to call her Sam or Sammy for short. During that period of my life, we had a pretty tight knit group of friends. We worked together, hung out together on our days off, and vacationed together. I was in a relationship at the time with whom I thought was the love of my life – and yes – he worked with us as well. Being young, insecure, and fairly jealous of those who were prettier, more slender, and more fun than I was, I was constantly trying to improve myself, by emulating them – I’d try to find similar outfits, buy the same make up, etc. (I cringe when I think about some of that now – how in my young mind I thought I could improve self-worth, or improve my confidence with an outfit or a blush color…) I digress. Anyway, my jealousy and all around stupidity led to the demise of my then relationship and a particularly important friendship I had at the time – with Sammy. It was a very confusing and painful time for me in my life, and one that has lead to a fairly introverted personality for me as time has moved forward.
At that time, I felt I was the victim – Sammy had gone from being my bestie, to excluding me from things and making fun of me every chance she got. I was isolated from my circle of friends with increasing frequency, and I was fairly certain that Sammy had slept with my boyfriend. Of course it didn’t help when he asked another close friend of mine to a dance of some sort and she said yes. I felt as if she should have declined, out of respect for me. Ahhh, youth…do I miss it – being young, yes? The lack of the wisdom I now seem to possess? NO!
Time moves on – Sammy left the organization and went to work elsewhere with her then boyfriend, and I was absorbed with nursing school. Once I completed that program, I became a full time nurse, and worked sparingly for EMS. By then, my little company had been bought out by a larger one and things had changed drastically. I was not in a committed relationship of any kind, but had a casual thing going with a co-worker and found myself pregnant, shortly after we had celebrated his birthday. He denied involvement, and, rather than forcing him to acknowledge something he clearly didn’t want, I decided to go it alone, and after my daughter was born, I left EMS all together and focused on nursing. Once I made that switch, those friends/adversaries were left to the past.
That is, until Facebook came along.
Once I joined the Facebook craze, those ‘blasts from the past’ would continually populate my newsfeed. Of course, those adversarial friends became ‘friends’ too – I ‘friended’ out of curiosity as to what they and their lives were like now, and I’m more than certain they had similar curiosities as well. As time went on, Sammy and I started conversing a bit. She too had gone to nursing school, and we shared similar career paths – critical care nursing, children, back problems, a love for animals in need… I sent her a small gift when she was laboring with her firstborn, and we developed a sporadic communication – usually via commenting on one another’s newsfeeds and the occasional text or message. When her marriage fell apart, she confided in me a bit. The communication remains sporadic, and we have not yet talked person to person – via phone or in person. She has invited me to call, but…it just makes me nervous. Silly, I know, as it’s been close to 25 years since all of that childish drama happened.
Now, she’s here visiting in my neck of the woods, and she has invited me to spend some time with her and her significant other. Drinks, beach time, and chatting is the agenda. We have a lot to catch up on, and I’d guess a lot of reminiscing to do. Do I want to go? Yes, actually I do. Am I insecure about how my 50 year old body compares to my 25 year old body? Yes, absolutely! Am I insecure in general? Yes, even more so…am I going to go? I’m scared to death but yes I think I will. I am anxious to see if we can find any of that crazy tight friendship we used to have…
Wish me luck!! And send some confidence my way please!!
Tropical Delusions...... 