Old friends...

Old friends...
Old friends...
Sat on their parkbench like bookends...

Can you imagine us years from today,
Sharing a parkbench quietly?
How terribly strange to be seventy.

I love those lines- "can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench quietly". It talks about everything I want when I grow old. The vision it evokes of peaceful old age, looking back at a life well lived, time well spent with people you love... And it's picked the words right out of my head by imagining how terribly strange it would be to be seventy!

I've always been slightly envious of people who have lots of friends. Somehow I never managed to open up to that many people. I have a knack for losing touch with people, even the ones I'm closest to. And I'll never understand why some of the people I care about the most can also anger me the most.

A very close friend and I have had many MANY ups and downs. We've had numerous fights, squabbles, cold wars and all out nuclear attacks. It's incredible, because in some ways we are so alike, and in others, so different. But somehow, in spite of all the fighting and bitching and hating and resenting, I still believe that she is someone I'll be sharing that park bench with when I'm 70.

Recently, we buried the hatchet, smoked the peace pipe, waved the white flag, offered the olive branch. We admitted we loved each other and gruffly punched each other on the shoulder. I think somewhere along the last four years, we both lost ourselves. I'm hoping this is the first step to finding ourselves. I don't think it will be easy, we've lost too much time. But it's a step forward, and that's what my new life is all about.

Here's to that park bench, crammed with old friends sharing that rum and coke/beer/glass of wine and sniggering about the good old days, Amla and Imla, hair pulling and much much more.