November 1999

The first time I went to the movies by myself, I was 16 years old. The film was Butterflies Are Free and it starred Michael Sarandon and Goldie Hawn. It was the last night of a weeklong showing at the Arlington Theatre, known for having old films for only a week at a time.

I went by myself because my best friend Marie, who had promised all week long that she would go with me, told me hours before the last show that she had decided to do something else with another friend. Determined not to miss the movie, I went alone in an angry sulk.

A few days later, Marie stopped by with a homemade apple pie – and the infamous (new) friend – to make up. I coolly thanked her, was polite but distant, and didn’t spend another evening with her for the next six years.

We met in the 7th grade when I changed schools. A big girl with a no nonsense attitude, Marie intimated everyone she towered over. At 5'8" (1.76m), she certainly overshadowed my 5'3" (1.60m) frame. We became friends because I wouldn’t let her push me around.

At 13, we did everything together – we cut classes, smoked behind the gym, flirted with the boys and slipped out of our houses to watch a 5a.m. sunrise on the Charles River. She went on to a different high school but we always managed to coordinate our sick days.

And so it came as a shock when Maureen moved into our neighborhood. At 5'10" and twice my width, Maureen seemed to have much more in common with my best friend. My after school job kept me from joining them and I watched as they seemed to spend more and more time together.

When Marie cancelled our movie date, I thought it was time to move on. I shied away from any overtures at making up. I kept track of her via mutual friends but when I went away for college, our lives diverged quite drastically.

I thought our friendship was pretty much over. I didn’t know, at 17-years old, that some things endured and that love doesn’t mean always having a good time together.

I ran into Marie quite by accident on a visit home during my senior year in college. She invited me to a party at her apartment and we began to catch up on the state of our lives. We picked up the thread of our friendship and began weaving a pattern that continues to this day. We live in different cities, different countries even, and we don’t keep in touch all that closely. I may not hear from her for a month or a year and then we connect – just like we left off yesterday.

Even as our lives pull us apart, our invisible thread seemed to connect us. Each time I think of calling her, it was at crucial moments. So I was there when she had knee surgery for an old ski injury. I was there too when the doctors told her, at 25, that she had MS, a disease that attacks the nervous system.

When I landed my first corporate job at 26, I named Marie as my beneficiary on the insurance form. I figured that the pay-off, in the event of my death, wasn’t big enough to help my parents but Marie could use the extra bucks – just in case.

But there was another fight, and her slamming the phone down in my ear. I vowed not to call and waited for the apology that never came. Nine months later she called to pick up the conversation as if nothing happened. I didn’t think you were ever going to call again, I said. How could you think that, she asked, I knew that our friendship was stronger than a stupid fight.

Recently I’ve been thinking about what endures because of another stupid fight with some other friend. There’s a lot more differences than our size, this friend and I. Like the story of the two blind people who, led to an elephant, must describe what they feel – I’m always talking about the leg and he’s going on about the trunk. Neither of us is truly correct and we need each other to draw a real picture. But being strong-willed and idiotic, we hold tight to our one-sided experiences.

After some clenched-teeth spats and murderous glares, there was talk of separation and splitting the spoils of an alliance that had seen better days. But in my saner moments and in-between fantasies of calculating how to hire an assassin, I vaguely remember another friendship that had seen its share of highs and lows.

No one ever said that two people can expect only to have good times for a friendship to work. But more than putting up with bad moments, I think they actually strengthen a bond. There’s something to be said about seeing someone bare their teeth. If having seen the worst, you still want to stay, than it must be that the good is stronger than the bad.

And so over coffee one morning, we began to reweave our fragile thread. It will take time but there’s no hurry because this is about staying for the long haul. I’m no longer 17 and I know that some things are worth the wait. At those moments when I doubt, all I have to do is give Marie a call, she’s there.