Rites of Passage and the Ones that Matter

So as this day comes to a close, and I am hours past my normal posting time, I am thinking about today.

Today I got the chance to grab coffee with an old friend.  She is one of my closest friends, one of my sisters, although we only see each other a handful of times during the year.  I had the feeling that something we talked about would be my post tonight.

M and I bond over our womanhood, our budding careers (which are truly in the buds still, waiting to bloom– her in law school, me pursusing my PhD).  We talk about family, school, relationships.

Two things that surfaced tonight, however, made me feel strong.

First, we talked about our mutual friends– we are a little group of 5 or 6 girls.  We are all doing things and going places.  Some of us are spending our early 20s advancing our education, others are flourishing in their personal lives– growing blossoming families or laying the foundation for such beauty.  We talk about this quite a bit.

I think I’ve written about this before– my little group– we run the span of being single to dating around to having a boyfriend to being engaged to married-with-second-baby-on-the-way.  While I hope that eventually we all find that “special someone” who we want to spend our life with, there is something beautiful about the fact that we are all so different at this moment– all in a different place and transition in our lives.  Our path diverged when we graduated almost 8 years ago, but we have stayed friends and supported each other through every phase.  There is something strong and beautiful about that for me– this amazing little community of women I’ve come to consider sisters.

And then there’s M– who for one reason or another had a falling out with one of our other girls shortly after graduation.  She told me tonight that she felt that things had healed between her and the other girl.  She said that the warm feelings she had, and the time they had been friends, outweighed whatever time they’d spent in disagreement.  And she said it was seeing the other girl with her new fiance that really changed things.  It was a reminder that we’re all doing big things– and taking big steps– and M said she couldn’t imagine not being a part of that.  I can’t help but agree.  We’re at that age when rites of passage are coming up fast and furious.  The people you want around for those moments– and the people whose moments you’d like to be included in– are the ones who matter.  Fix things with those people when they’re broken.  And the others– well– the rest aren’t worth worrying about.