I used to watch the show New Girl. Emphasis on “used to” in case you think it’s a recommendation. If you like it that’s cool, but if you are wondering if it’s clean comedy. No. It’s not.
Anyway, back to my point. The main character is Jess (played by the adorable Zooey Deschanel) and her best friend is Cece (played by Hannah Simone ) Cece and Jess have been friends since childhood. Sometimes the show will have flash backs of when they were younger. The Jess character is supposed to be the awkward clumsy teacher in glasses, while Cece is a professional model. There was one episode where Jess and CeCe find their relationship challenged as Jess doesn’t fit in with any of CeCe’s model friends and hurts CeCe’s feelings by demeaning her career. Of course they make up and all is well at the end, but the part that caught my attention is when one of them says “If we met today do you think we would even be friends?” and the other replies “I don’t know, but we’re friends now”
I love that sappy part. It totally reminds me of me and my BFF Mels. This is not the best picture, but it’s the most recent.
We met at church 14 years ago when we were both college students. I was married and she lived in a dorm, so it’s not like we were exactly alike, but we had plenty enough in common. We went to the same church, hung out with the same friends, had very similar upbringings, and we both shared an infinite love for Ben & Jerry’s.
However, time marches on and now I have 4 kids live in Ohio and I’m pretty much a soccer mom without the soccer. She lives 6 hours away in Michigan. She has an online shop where she sells vintage clothes. She knows all kinds of snobby coffee stuff. She is just coolness, or whatever the current hipster word would be. She will argue with me about this, I can promise you that. She really is tons of artsy free wheeling fun though, whereas I am super tied down and mostly cranky.
Yet, we still managed to stay friends even with the physical distance and all the changes. We make sure not too much time goes by without Facetiming, texting, or talking on the phone after my kids go to bed. And hopefully at least once a year we manage to visit each other (although now she needs to get her butt down here and meet my new baby!)
When I think of Jess and Cece I wonder, if Mels and I met today would we be friends? Probably not. I am sure we could get along, but none of that matters. Now that we are friends we are stuck with each other. We have history together. That’s that.
All these hypotheticals got me thinking If I met my husband today would we be friends (Or lovers? Insert giggle. Sorry I couldn’t refuse). Except that question doesn’t really work for us, because if we had never met who in the world would we be? I mean I still have my personality, but we are one and he is a MAJOR part of who I am today. We have shaped each other at such an intricate level that there is no unshaping. If we had never met we would not live where we do now, we wouldn’t have our kids, we probably wouldn’t even be into the some of the stuff we like because of our influence on one another and the influence of the people we have come across as a couple. It’s like another dimension that I don’t even want to think about. It’s a stretch, but let’s say J and I met today instead of 20 years ago. I would say yes, we would still fall in love and get married, but I am grateful I didn’t have to wait that long!
Do you have any friends that you have known for so long you can’t imagine life without them? If you met today would you be friends?
I love this. I was actually thinking about this the other day when discussing my choice of college. It wasn’t the best experience and not ideal but, if I hadn’t gone there, I would never have met my husband or had the life we share. So I guess things happen for a reason and really have a way of just working out!
My BFF is Brie. We grew up on the same street together and it was a cup de sac so we played outside every possible day we could, except when I was grounded. And even then sometimes she’d sneak in my room. (Heehee). We have influenced each other so much I can’t imagine who I would be today if she hadn’t been part of my life. However, we have not continued to influence each other today. We talk occasionally and see each other’s kids and love each other deeply, but it’s not the same. I feel the same way about Paul as you do about Jeremy though; we are one and there is no separating that or going back to who I was before I met him. Sometimes in marriage we can feel like we are losing ourselves, especially a person whose spouse has a strong personality. The world will tell us to assert ourselves, to remember who we were…but maybe we should also remember that we have influenced our spouses too and that are not who they were before they met us.