It’s been one hell of a week. There’s a lot I could write about, both good and bad. I choose to focus on one of the better parts of the last week.
They say old friends are the best friends. I don’t know if that’s true for everyone, but it is for me. I have a lot of wonderful friends, but the ones I’ve known since childhood are just amazing. Part of it is that we’ve known each other for so long. We’ve seen each other through sicknesses, marriages, children, graduations, job changes, big things, small things, and everything else. Part of it is that they just happen to be really wonderful human beings. And the other day we were all in the same place, at the same time.
We don’t have many reunions. It’s gotten harder as everyone has had kids. I can’t imagine how much harder it will be if more people more away, or if people move farther than driving distance. It had been over a year, and we were so excited to see each other! As my mother said when she saw the photos, “The smiles on everyone’s faces just says it all.” She’s right.
I was nervous about my health leading up to the reunion. In general I was worried about how I’d feel in the heat of late June (though everyone agreed to keep the party indoors in air conditioning if I needed it.) More specifically, as the time came, I was feeling particularly lousy. I got incredibly lucky with the weather; not only was it an unusually great June, but the days leading up to our get-together weren’t hot or humid, and the days of were good, too. That helped a lot. Still, I felt horrible for other reasons. I won’t give the full back story here (like I said, I’m focusing on the good things,) but basically there were adrenal problems that triggered all sorts of symptoms and my supplements just weren’t doing the trick.
If this had been any other gathering with friends, I would have simply cancelled. But I’d been looking forward to this for many months and I wasn’t about to miss it! So for two days I ate very little, I took extra adrenal supplements, I adjusted my sleep patterns, and I just pushed through. I felt lousy, but I hid it the best I could. Everyone knows about my health issues and they are the most supportive friends I could ask for. But just once, I wanted to have conversations that didn’t even touch on my health. So I hid how I felt. And I had a great time. I had so much fun with my friends, that I was able to ignore my aches, pains, nausea, and the rest for most of the night and the next day. I got down on the ground, I held babies, I fetched things for others, and I faked it til I made it – and it worked!
Pushing through sometimes works for me, but it’s rare. Very rare. Incredibly rare. I-can-count-it-on-my-fingers rare. But if it’s going to happen just once, I’m glad it was for those days. They were just fantastic. I couldn’t have asked for better. And I’ll be holding on to those memories as I anticipate our next reunion. Hopefully I won’t have to wait another year! And hopefully I’ll feel ok.
Chronic Rants 
How wonderful!
Oh, yeah – old friends are *the* best, because there’s so much they understand, without having the whole backstory of the inside jokes and references explained – just one or two words brings on gales of laughter. 🙂 🙂 🙂
You said it perfectly Karen! 🙂
So glad you were able to enjoy it. Sometimes the best thing we can do is ignore the pain and focus on anything else, and when that “anything” is something positive and enjoyable like time with friends, all the better.
That’s so true, Julie. There are few better ways to distract from the pain than being with great friends.