Bondage can be a GOOD thing!

Sewanee Gals @ Shenanigans

I’m on cloud 9.  I have just returned from an absolutely amazing weekend in the rolling hills of Tennessee.  And yes, it was because of facebook, once again.

As you may remember, I reunited w/ my old Sewanee Academy friend “Martina” a year ago.  It was my first facebook-generated face-to-face, and I was nervous as a whore in church! But it worked out beautifully.  We vowed to do it again, soon.

So about a month ago, I turned on my computer and I had a new friend request! Ohhhhhh!! I LOVE getting “friended”, (unless it’s from someone I don’t know or didn’t like,) so I clicked accept, and there she was!  Beth, an old dorm-mate from back in my Sewanee days.  Not even a week later, same thing.  Accept friend request. Tracy!!!! OMG WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN????”   Well, you know the drill…back and forth the 4 of us, yadda yadda yadda, giddy as shit with tons of questions.

Having gone to the funeral of an old Sewanee classmate 2 years ago (who just happened to be Martina’s ex-husband), I made a promise to myself that I would make an effort to revisit those people that had made an impact (good, not bad) on my past. I have lost too many friends unexpectedly without having had the chance to tell them how I felt, that I loved them. That was before I was on facebook, tho, and my efforts to make contact were mostly in vain.  Enter facebook and, well, you know that story.

So, last weekend, with very little prodding from me, the four of us descended upon our old haunts. Between remembering the past and telling about the present, we never shut up.  We laughed until we cried, (or pee’d) and brought back some memories that had long been buried far below the surface, either intentionally or not. When you’ve lived in a dorm with someone and shared life’s daily in’s and out’s, you grow bonds like few others.  The amazing thing was, we all felt like we were coming home, as if it had only been last year, last month, that we had been together.

When an adolescent girl is thrown blindly into a smorgasbord of personalities and backgrounds, it is impossible to predict the outcome. Trust becomes a central issue, and our emotional survival depends on having a support system that has our back. It was through trial and error that each of us found that support system, chalking some “friendships” up to the old live and learn adage.  Life experiences, broken hearts, self-doubt—while these are issues that may follow us through life, the feelings are never as intense as they are in the formidable years of pubescence. How we emerge as adults is highly dependent on how we adjust to those years, so god willing, and with a strong sense of self-preservation, we will eek by fairly unscathed. (Ok, none of us came out totally unscathed, but there was no insurmountable damage). Each of us has led very different lives which have taken us in different directions. Yet our characters have remained intact, if not stronger.

I’m going to admit here, that none of these 3 girls was my BFF at Sewanee. Regardless, I had a strong respect for each one, and remembered them individually with fondness. We did spend an abundance of time together, however, and when asked this weekend if I ever thought that we would be sitting here together at the age of 50, my response was an unhesitant “yes”.

Yes because I believe in the will of the mind, the power of intention, and the bonds that somehow, throughout whatever life hands you, will never be broken. Thank you for that girls. I love you.