As Time Goes By

Three day weekend for me because…it's coming up on my birthday! I have added some pictures of me, before I got old-ish. Although I still look almost exactly the same. Really. I do. Alright, maybe not exactly the same, but I still have a head, two arms and two legs. So there is a definite resemblance.



Yep, on Monday I turn fifty cough cough cough years old. And to think, I don’t feel a day over ninety! lol Or act a day over twelve. lol



My girls, two of my dearest friends and I are going to celebrate this weekend at my favorite restaurant, Moonstruck, in Asbury Park. Next weekend my son and daughter -in-law have invited me to their house for brunch. So it will be at least a week of birthday fun!


I love my birthday!

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I seem to be heading into a stage of my life when things are cycling around again. Long term friends, fantastic people, who had drifted away through time and busy lives, have been put right in front of me. Almost like birthday presents. It makes me nostalgic for the time that is past.

Several dear friends have reconnected through the internet, including my two oldest friends from growing up in New York. It is a joy to have them part of my everyday life again and the power of this medium never ceases to amaze me.

One friend, S. (I haven’t asked her if I could print her name, so I want to respect her privacy) actually just lives around the corner from me. When I could still walk around the neighborhood, we would run into each other, stand there yakking for a half an hour, swear we had to get together…and then never did.

S. is an ebullient professor of languages, smart, kind, funny and simply a joy to spend time with. I have thought of her so often, remembering when we were both pregnant with our now 23 year old daughters. How we saw each other routinely at mother’s get-togethers. Most poignant of all is thinking about the wonderful times we spent with our mutual, beloved friend Sheila, who we lost to cancer a mind-boggling 18 years ago. It seems as though it was just hours ago we all were sitting together over tea, so much love there, and so much laughter.

Well, out of the blue S. called me two weeks ago. It was the loveliest surprise. We had lunch together on her screened in porch, right on the lake. It was blissful, as though that corridor of years between then and now had simply evaporated. She has been put back in my life for some unknown reason and I am so grateful. I don’t even want to contemplate why. I just want to be thankful for the fact of it.

I have another friend I have not seen in many years. L. was one of the closest people I ever had in my life. We were movie partners, walking partners, laughing partners. Our families were practically blended. But through one thing or another we fell out of touch. For more than ten years.

At the supermarket the other day, Mary Kate and I were making one last pass through, remembered we needed canned cat food. There was a couple standing in front of the display and I was trying to look past them to get the best buy, when it registered. It was L. and her husband. It is remarkable to me that we live so close, yet this was the first time I ran into her. We hugged and she said the most beautiful thing: “I think of you every day.” I am so humbled by that. Who am I to be so important to someone that they think of me every day?

They had to run. They were taking care of a sick friend. They are always taking care of a sick friend. Taking care of people is a lifestyle for them. But we promised we’d call. And I will. Because, again, I believe L. was literally put in front of me for some reason. One of us must need the other. Or maybe we both need each other. Or perhaps the universe just wants us to laugh together again.