The Word: March
I left, I left, I left my wife in New Orleans
With fifty kids and a can of beans
I thought it was right, right…
Libby and I walked arm in arm, swinging our feet over each other’s legs, shouting this schoolyard chant at the top of our lungs. We met at age three and, throughout our elementary school careers, we were the stars of every playground, giggling in our matching seersucker sundresses and blonde pigtails.
We trotted through childhood in this fashion; trick-or-treating in homemade costumes down her picturesque neighborhood street; winning snowball fights in frosty pathways around her grandparents’ Idaho ranch; parading through our local market, selling Girl Scout cookies to passersby; holding milkshakes; twirling near a warm beach bonfire.
Almost immediately, our families became intertwined. I gained a second set of parents and the little brothers I never had. I attended Sunday church after Saturday night sleepovers and, later, Libby tirelessly ran through Bat Mitzvah prayers and procedures with me. We sought out shopkeepers and restaurant workers alike to see if they would believe we were sisters.
When we were 12 years old, Libby and I enrolled in different middle schools. Her daily presence was replaced by that of girls who gossiped, shopped in the pre-teen section of Bloomingdales, and had a predilection for three-way calling pranks. The click-clacking of high heels overpowered the slapping of white Adidas.
We could no longer share our lunches or have our midday chats, and going to each other’s houses after school quickly became impractical. Playground trots turned into daily phone calls. We often called each other crying, wanting to return to our old lives. We didn’t want to progress, only rewind. But despite the distance, we somehow managed to maintain our friendship. We had to figure out how to stay close because neither of us could remember or imagine life without the other one in it.
Our lives diverged. Libby’s wanderlust took her to exotic locales for summers—eventually to Amman, Jordan for our junior year of high school. Meanwhile, I grew close with a caring group of friends and immersed myself in APs and standardized tests. Our calls turned to texts and, one year, she celebrated her birthday and Halloween away from home and me. Our reunions were joyous but short-lived.
When we began college in August, the space between us grew again. The journey from her room to mine is measured in miles, not minutes. Fortunately, we now are much better suited to handle the distance.
A couple of weeks ago, I was home coping with the recent death of my grandfather. My birthday fell a few days later and Libby’s mother showed up at the front door she had entered so many times, with a note and cupcakes from her daughter in Washington, D.C. Libby was looking out for me and after me, even from 3,000 miles away.
The gesture made me realize that we had seamlessly outgrown the interlocked arms and skipping feet that were the original landmarks of our friendship. While we are now not as physically close as we once were, our friendship no longer needs that proximity.
Time marches on, and we are still marching in tandem.