I really don’t know what to title this. I’ve recently gotten several abundance gifts in the form of old friends coming back into my realm, and I have found myself revisiting a time that was probably one of the healthiest in my life.

I lived in the Cleveland suburbs for about 10 years, from age 5 – 15. Its my home, of sorts, even if I haven’t been there in over a decade. Cleveland was a haven. It marked my escape from a very dark period of my life.

In junior high, I had a very tight knit group of girlfriends. There were about 10 of us, all together, and we did the normal teenage sleepovers, boy talk, girl drama, etc. Nothing special, by reasonable means, but again, it was healthy and normal. I can’t say that for many other eras in my life. It all came to an end for me, though, when I was transplanted to Arkansas, sending me on a completely different path than what I had envisioned during my Cleveland years. That’s a blog for another day.

I found a few of these girls, now women, on Facebook last week and I have subsequently spent a lot of time catching up with them. Their lives are so different from mine, and so I’m trying to reconcile myself with the person I thought I would be with who I am now. I’m really not different, but my life circumstances certainly are. Its actually a direct reflection of this blog, starring Jenny.

Jenny is living in NYC (Woohoo! Now I have a place to crash!) and she is still just as wonderful as ever. I think I wrote last time about holding on to the gems we find in our lives, and she is a perfect example of that. I cannot even put it into words how nice it is to talk to her again, but I believe I used the term, “uncharacteristically mushy.”

Katie. Wow, I could analyze that friendship all day. She and I were the friends who were in love and in hate, almost daily. She was the “Red Heather” to my “Veronica” if you know what I mean, or that’s how I saw it. I adored her, though, and she’s always held a spot on my personal “most talented people I know” list. She’s an actor now, and still has that Katie spice I loved. She was also the first person to befriend me when I switched schools after my mom remarried. My mom hated her, which may have added to her appeal. She wasn’t a “bad girl” by any means, just very influential. She was actually the first person to ask me to sing, then kept whispering to me to be louder. I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to have at least one “Katie” in my life at all times. They definitely keep it interesting.

Sue. My fondest memory (right now, as its pretty early) of Sue was when we sat in the library devising a plan to blow up the school. I am so not kidding about the plan… but don’t panic, because we were really just joking around. Now, that little diagram would land us in jail. Back then, it was just stupidly funny. The crew and I attended her mom’s wedding, where I contracted salmonella poisoning and lived through 10 days of hell for eating a turkey sandwich. Sue, oddly enough, now lives within 20 minutes of me. Crazy!

Mel. Mel is half of the twins known as Missy and Melli. I’m sure she hates being a “half,” and I plan to pick her brain a lot on the whole twin thing, and her sister’s brain. They were my friends who understood when I talked about crystals and herbs, and I really wanted to be adopted by their mom. I felt a lot of similarities with Mel back then. Parallel history with, well, a lot of things.

Shannon. I always felt there was a tug-of-war with Katie over Shannon. She was a very special friend, too. Always caring and she let me try her communion host before I was baptized. She and I used to go to a local creek and swim in this one little (really slimy) spot… because we could. If I recall correctly, it was Shannon and I who used to ride our bikes on these crazy trips that landed us way beyond our little towns. I can only imagine what would have happened if we were driving at the time.

Sleepovers, bike rides, the talent show (What good is sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music plaaaaay!), Les Miserables mania, dreams of stage stardom and the crazy, stupendous, otherworldly creativity of that time. The tears and competition over boys. The support and love we all had for each other. Maybe I am romanticizing it a bit, especially since I had a different life to face that wasn’t as magical. I know that before I moved, we were all going in separate directions anyway, whether because of new friends, boyfriends or just a difference in lifestyles. It was quite an era while it lasted… absolutely unforgettable.

I wonder, now, how much of that time was actually foreshadowing in terms of where we would end up. I am still doing now what I did then in terms of being the one people seek out for advice. Or, maybe I’m trying to recreate that time… or maybe a little bit of both.

Its the circles in life that make me take notice, more so than the question of what is coming ahead of me. Its these people, these events that revisit and the inherent lessons they teach that get my analytical wheels moving. There is also a great joy in knowing that while almost 20 years has passed since speaking to many of these women, there is still a common bond between us. Some may call it “Iranian Poultry Day” but it was really just us, and we were pretty damn cool.