almost twenty years later

Until moving to New Jersey, I had taken for granted how hard it was to make friends.  I didn't realize that things like school, sports, church, etc were communities that facilitated these things - and for the first time, I had to pro-actively find myself some friends.

The nanny agency I was hired through did understand this - and provided me with a list of names and telephone numbers of other nannies that lived in the area.  So when I first moved to New Jersey - I made a point to plugging myself in to as many communities as I could find - including the nanny list.

Paula Bennett had come to New Jersey from England as an au pair.  She was placed with another Jewish family about five miles from my house.  I don't particularly remember the first time I met her, nor how long I'd been working for - but for the year she was there, we did quite a bit together, and for the six months to a year she overstayed her visa to be with her horrible boyfriend, we continued hanging out.  I really can't comprehend how we stayed friends - we never fought, we just had so little in common.  I studied hard, didn't gossip, went to church, played sports, didn't swear, lie, cheat or sleep with boyfriends - she was the exact opposite.  But, I guess we laughed a lot and had good times.  I visited her in England in 1999 so she thinks I'm a better friend, but she's kept in better contact with me since (and for some reason, I was always surprised to hear from her).

So keeping in contact has lead to her family taking a vacation to Turkey for two weeks - they got here last night and are staying in a hotel nearby.  She grabbed these dates at the end of my maternity leave and pre-season prices.  Her friends threw her a going away party over the weekend - I joked it was because they were afraid they'll never see her again - they've all been harassing her about choosing Turkey for vacation in the midst of the turmoil here.  She also happened to arrive on a rainy day with the weather only topping out at 21 degrees Celsius.

I found myself, as usual, a little over excited, enthusiastic and out-of-sorts when I was with her today.  And much to my pleasure and surprise - I found Paula to be the exact same way as me.  (Maybe we have more in common that I thought).  We were forgetting things and giving each other presents and chasing our children and chatting like no time had passed.  When she got after her kids it was the same half measured half irrational way she scolded the kids' she nannied  (Luke, you pushed your brother.  You had too much sugar, I'm taking away your iPad if you keep doing that, sit here for eight minutes, you watch too much TV).  She still lies without batting an eye and I still balk at the idea of doing something against the rules.  (I was visiting her at an all-inclusive resort - but obviously I was not included).  Seeing her I began remembering what a generous heart she had, what a good sport she was, and how she always made an effort to look at things from the positive.

Her dream was to become a midwife - and amazingly, she pulled herself together, got a nursing license, got married to an Irish bloke, had three kids, and more recently, became a licensed mid-wife.

things were happening too fast to take good pictures

And now, here she was - after all these years - here we were - different and the same all at once.

We ended the evening at our house