Two Years Ago

Lovelies,

I just connected with a friend I hadn’t seen in five years.

I was under the impression it had been two years. (In general, I’m under the impression things happened two years ago. My brain does the absolute LEAST to differentiate history from present.) 

I would have done well to check the calendar before we sat down. I was prepared for it to have been two years. Meaning, aware as I am that friends, in addition to being the most exquisite of human experiences, serve as TIME CAPSULES of who we were the exact last time we saw them, I was prepared to encounter Rachel-two-years-ago.

I was NOT prepared to glimpse Rachel-five-years-ago. More than that, I was not prepared to glimpse ANY version of myself with a power to throw me. HAVE I NOT YET INTEGRATED EVERYTHING??

Nah, there was something about revisiting that five-years-ago moment — the moment after I’d stopped falling, two moments before I started building — that broke my not-integrated heart. It wasn’t the flailing crash of it. It was that there was not one. It was how okay I was. A cracked-rib effort of okay. A masterclass performance of okay. 

Where do the un-had flailing crashes go? 

I guess they end up in the eyes of our friends. When five years later they encounter us different. When they say, “You seem… well.” And you say you are, and it’s the truth.

All my love,

Rachel