On Long Friendships

 One of the highlights of my visit home this weekend was dinner with Uisdean Ruadh and The Director.

The gathering of the three of us, or of any two of us, is the continuation of a conversation that has been going on for over 40 years as, in the Long Ago on a certain day in March (I always think 14 March, but the date is not really important) a curly haired mature teenager that would be The Director introduced to a flaming red head who he met in drama and would become Uisdean Ruadh to the dark haired socially awkward kid he met in band (I will leave you to figure out who that is).  Even over 40 years, the personalities still hold true:  The Director is mature and thoughtful, Uisdean Ruadh remains as flamboyant and outgoing as what is left of his flaming red hair would suggest, and I remain as socially awkward as ever.

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The conversations are always easy, picking up in many cases at the last place they may have left off - whenever the last time we met.  We arre able to separate into two groups that whirl and change like a couple at square dance:  the Director and I talking on the couch about his advisory trip, Uisdean Ruadh and The Director's Wife talking about life in general.  Later, those situations reverse at dessert and The Director and Uisdean Ruadh discuss The Director's ongoing work and I catch up with The Director's Wife.  The conversation is never forced, always free flowing and engaging - something that seems remarkably rare to me in the environment (modern business) that I have spent so much time of late, where almost nothing beyond the task at hand is discussed.

Dinner, with the four mentioned above as well as with The Director's children, focuses almost exclusively on us getting the latest update on the Director's ongoing dissertation work.  It is the sort of conversation that seems almost lost to me now on an ongoing basis:  The Director explaining, Uisdean Ruadh or myself digging deeper or making suggestions ("Have you thought about this?"), then listening to responses.  My hope is that in some way we are sharpening his thought process.  My joy is that I get to hear his thought processes as they are happening - or as I tell him later, "I get to live dissertation writing vicariously through you."

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The fact that we three have remained not only in contact at all but close friends remains something of a mystery to me:  so many high school friendships never survive meaningfully beyond the first year or two of college, and we all had different routes that took us away from Old Home.  Uisdean Ruadh remained here taking care of his parents, only gone long enough to train and serve in the Reserves.  The Director went away to school and then graduate school until he returned.  I, too, went away to school and then graduate school and then returned - until work lead me farther and farther afield; the upcoming move to New Home 2.0 will be the closest I have been in 15 years.

And yet, through all of that, we remained connected in a way that others have not.

Through weddings, divorces, the birth of children, the adoption of children, the death of parents, the loss of jobs, health emergencies - we have somehow managed to stay together in a meaningful way that enabled us not only to continue to speak with each other, but get support from each other in a way that I feel few friendships I have known can offer.  Not just the well meant "approval" button on social media, but in a way that is truly supportive.  If I have a problem, if I have a harebrained idea, if I need guidance - these are the ones I reach out to.

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One of the oddest things about growing older is not the fact of growing older - that is as it may be - but that friendships like this grow older.  More and more I find myself my working with people younger (or much younger than me.  Their youth is not nearly as confounding to me as the fact I have a friendship that is older than they are.  Explaining that fact is always somewhat revelatory as well:  One mentions the age of the friendship and then just steps back as they start doing the math.  More often than not, there is this revelatory sense of that a relationship has lasted longer than they have been alive.

Is this unusual?  I would say the answer is largely "Yes", at least in my own sphere.  I am used to thinking and hearing of marriages lasting this long; I am not used to hearing of friendships enduring this long - especially if they involve people that are geographically separated. Too often it is just easier to readapt to the current "place" than pull those relationships along with you:  They take time.  They take effort.  They take commitment.

It strikes me as I write this that outside of my relationship with my sister and cousins, this friendship is the next longest thing in my life.  It has existed longer than my marriage, than blogging, that Iaijutsu - longer than any other thing.

It saddens me - deeply, profoundly - that this is not, or at least no longer, the norm.  Like so many other things in our modern culture, we have become a mile wide and an inch deep to our detriment.

And besides - there is nothing better than a running joke which been running for forty years.