Someone once said to me in the comment section of this blog that this would happen every time. I wasn’t sure if it were true. Last time, when my father and Carol were here, I cried for two days after they left. Then I got my period. I explained it away. It’s happened again. I didn’t think it would. I just walked into the guest room where they had been staying. They re-made the bed. Their towels were hanging. The white tank I lent Smelly, hanging, alone, on a wooden hanger. Everything else is gone.
The bathroom no longer hosts their makeup and hair bands. There’s a trash pail with tissues. It’s all that’s left. I start to cry. I miss my friends, and when I see them for the first time, I realize how much. But now that they’re gone, it’s not about realizing. All I do is feel it. I miss my friends and their stories and particular ways of doing things. I miss Smelly’s laugh and Amy’s facial expressions. I had the most wonderful time with them while they were here, and it hurts now. It’s not homesick because I don’t miss New York, not really. I miss, very deeply, my friends. And I can’t stop crying. It’s not rational, of course. I mean, I’ll be in New York in June. And then again in August, but right now, it’s all I feel. I want so much to play tennis with them again. To run our drills and give each other pointers, to drive with the top down, to pass approval hoping to narrow down our shoe selections, sharing sushi and stories. I miss them so much.
If this is to happen each and every time someone visits, I’m not allowing any more guests. Okay, that’s not true at all. But I swear to God… you know what it’s like? It’s like a break up. I just went through their garbage. I’m not kidding. There was a shopping bag beside the garbage pail filled with empty shoe boxes. I wanted to double check it, to ensure they hadn’t mistakenly left something behind. And here’s the fucked up bit: there were some magazines at the bottom of the bag. Magazines I’d never read. In Touch, US Weekly, and a host of other tabloids. I pulled them from the bag and put them on my coffee table. Knowing they read these makes me feel closer to them. And it’s kind of psycho… like the kind of nut who saves someone’s tissue because they know it was used by them. I’m not that bad, but I’m definitely clinging on, wishing, so much, that they were still here, that we could live our lives together for the rest of them. Close. I mean who hasn’t had those hopes? The hope of, “we’ll all live next door and have barbecues and all our kids will play together.” And then next, after all the husbands and boys die off (God-forbid, but if that happens…) we’ll all have each other, to have and to hold, Golden Girls with more closet space. I just miss them so much.
Here’s what I think I miss most. I have a handful of wonderful friends here, but they’ve all known me as married. They’re not friends who knew me single and miserable. Forget not sharing the history together. It’s more than that. It’s missing friends who love you for you, not for “you and Phil.” They know me as Stephanie. Just Stephanie, not part of something else. And I miss that. I am of course happy I’m part of something else, something bigger than just myself. Of course I am. I do miss the girl time though, the sharing of stories and fears. The encouragement and laughter. It’s what’s missing from my life now, a pack of girls. And it makes me incredibly sad. I have to make much more of an effort to get out with other women. To feel comfortable enough to bring both my children along. It’s frightening meeting women out with babies. I worry they’ll cry the whole time, that I’ll apologize too often. But I need to do it. For me.
And although my girls are gone, their shoes are here. It seems there was no room in their bags for their new purchases, so I’m FedExing their things tomorrow. Five pairs each, I think. We broke them in at The Broken Spoke, where real cowboys (complete with hats, belts, boots, and jokes about “toe-trucks,” not to be confused with tow trucks) asked my friends to dance. Phil stepped on my toe. There’s a reason we chose not to have dancing at our wedding. We’re determined though to learn, here at home, because it was fun. Texan waltz, Polka, Progressive Two-Step. I loved The Broken Spoke, loved seeing couples in their seventies still doing their thing. It’s polite and chivalrous, where a man can ask for a dance and want only that. The cowboys we met were all polite, offering to teach us the steps. Our shoes were broken in. Here are the photos to prove it:
