Have you ever been rooting through the back of your closet and discovered a pair of old, fuzzy slippers you haven’t seen or worn in quite a while? You put them on and they feel so comfortable you wonder why you stopped wearing them.
I’m lucky enough to have several friends I put into an elite category. They are my fuzzy slipper friends, people I may not have seen or been in touch with for quite a while, but the moment we reunite time and distance melt away and we reconnect so easily it’s as though we were together last weekend. Friendship that feels so good and doesn’t require maintenance.
Ted came for dinner Friday night. We’ve known each other since high school when we both worked on the yearbook. We haven’t been together physically in seven years. He was on his way to Halifax to pick up his niece and take her back to Ontario. He made a slight detour to stop in.
In fact, he’s one of a group of seven of us who’ve been friends since our late teens. We are scattered across Canada now: one in Victoria, Ted was in Calgary but recently relocated to Ottawa, two more in Ottawa, one in Aurora, and two of us in Fredericton. Our careers have taken us in many different directions, including business, public and government relations, IT, international development, and professorial research. Name an issue – there’s a good chance one of us will have weathered it.
We celebrated our 50th birthday milestone by getting together during an August long weekend at my home. Proving that peer pressure doesn’t have to end with adolescence, we followed up by emailing embarrassing and uniquely hilarious photos of ourselves, that only this particular group would do and appreciate, on the day of our individual birthdays. That’s one of the reasons why I treasure my friendship with them.
Covid 19 ruled out the possibility of gathering for our 60th birthdays. Instead, we had a Zoom call to celebrate the big day with appropriate beverages and party hats. It was so much fun we ended up doing it seven times. We’ve been zooming every other month or so since then. Turns out we enjoy hanging out together just as much as we ever did in our teens and 20s, only now we do it virtually. For me, I couldn’t imagine the pandemic craziness of the last two years without talking and laughing about it with the trusted friends who’ve known me since forever. They’ve been a reassuring sounding board.
So, Ted and I ate yummy Greek take-out seasoned with lots of delicious conversation. We had so much to talk about, we almost forgot to take some pics together. After laughing about the changes to our bodies, we managed to capture some terribly unflattering, photo booth-style shots. Blame it on fuzzy slippers.
That’s how I roll.