Signing Your Yearbook

I have all my old yearbooks. The funny thing is I look at them a lot less then I looked at my older sisters' yearbooks. I was obsessed with theirs, downright clinically obsessed. I poured over them like they were ancient texts that might unlock my future. I know it irritated those girls, but still, I snuck into their rooms and curled up for hours while they were gone, reading every. single. word. (Later, I would do the same with album liner notes - a whole other obsession.) To this day, I remember more of my sisters classmates then they do -- fuck, I could even quote their "quotes."

I mention this because in the last week or so three old friends have called or written because of my scrawlings here, and I mention it because I am nothing if not a consistently poor friend when it comes to keeping in touch, and I mention it also to remind said neglected friends that I meant every word that I wrote in their yearbooks -- even though none of us even shared one together. But if we did, I hope you know that I meant what I imagine I would write.

The first is a high school friend who I met slinging sandwiches and who my father always called, mysteriously to me then, the salt of the earth. I know what he was talking about now. The second is the first friend I had when I was a mom, and who moved away a short year later and about whom my mother said I would never forget because "you remember always the people you raise your kids with." The third is the most fun friend I had during my decade in the music business and the first person I ever IMd; it was during the dial-up days -- even though we could say more in two minutes on the phone, we hunkered down over the computer for hours. She was one of a handful who supported me when I went out on my own to start my business. Her ex-boyfriend was one of my favorite clients and is still one of my favorite musicians.

Now, these three are long gone from my everyday. One is in LA, one in Minnesota, one in Baltimore. All are married, most with kids. The drama/hilarity/sweetness of our shared past is long, long gone, which has less to do with me being neglectful, and more to do with time and its relentless ways. Still, hearing their voices, on the page or the phone, I wish I was better at holding onto what I love.

My youngest will turn four in a week and that seems almost unknowable to me: I don't even look at the baby aisle in the grocery store anymore and I didn't realize how big that felt until recently. My kids say they never want to grow up and leave, my son is checking the mirror to see if his baby face is still staring back at him, and even as I remind them that their growing up and leaving someday is the measure of my motherhood, I know how they feel. It sucks when things change.

I just turned 38. I don't have the dismal lurking gloom of my own mortality, and still abuse my body, willingly, without much remorse, but I can see how easily my life could turn into nothing but a collection of memories and yearbook pages. So, I'm gonna resist it, and I will call back (promise!) and write back too.

In the meantime: thank God for the internets.