As adults, some of the girls I grew up with moved away from this community where I’ve remained. In our middle years, a few of these women returned to the area and we reconnected. We’d weathered marriages, divorces, births, deaths and health problems. It’s interesting to note how we’ve changed and how we’ve maintained a unique, core identity through traits and characteristics.
Joyce and I reconnected by attending a 5-day writers’ seminar in northern Wisconsin. When we registered at our Rhinelander motel on a Sunday evening in July, we each qualified for our first AARP discount. Our fiftieth birthdays were only a few weeks away.
The last time we’d been together, we were teenage tomboys who loved riding horses, playing sports and dancing with boyfriends. Our farm families attended various social events together. After graduating from similar, small high schools, we went our separate ways and lost touch.
Joyce earned a college degree, married a career serviceman and lived in various places. After a divorce, she brought her daughter and son back to southern Wisconsin. She began a job with the Madison school system and became friends with coworker, Pat, who is my cousin. Learning I was still in Durand, she wrote to me to get reacquainted. We continued exchanging letters, which evolved into emails.
Kelly Quinn, PhD, clinical assistant professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has studied reconnecting with friends. She finds that shared interests, history and common values allow relationships to redevelop quickly. The two people may not share the same politics or religious views, but they don’t try to convert one another.
Friends increase health and play an important role in well-being. At midlife, we become more selective about our cronies seeking quality rather than quantity. Time with an old chum is like relaxing in a favorite easy chair at the end of a hard day, no artifice–just comfort.
Have you reconnected with an old pal?