Over the holiday break I had the unique pleasure of reviving a long-dead friendship. My friend and his family live an hour north of Toronto in a cozy, quaint town. Our interactions evolved in the natural way: beginning with typical, childish generalities before maturing and taking on an idiosyncratic friendship replete with ridiculous noise-gags and inside jokes. There was no predicting the catastrophic dissolution of friendly relations. Our mothers were childhood friends, and, following suit, we too became friends in childhood. We were alike enough to get along and unalike enough to not tire of one another.
Yet, in early March of 2015, in a battle for the affections of another person with whom, ironically, neither of us presently maintains relations, a rift opened and bitter silence engulfed us. In the months and years that followed, I extended olive branches, hoping that time would ameliorate things. However, the radio silence remained undisturbed. It took until just a few weeks ago, in December of 2019, with one final proffering of the olive branch:
“Dude, you’ve fallen off the face of the earth.”
To my surprise I received the following message:
“Let’s chat next Sunday. This shit changes. I would appreciate the opportunity to explain and set things right.”
I drove to his town. The roads cut through swirling wheat fields and lightning-cracked trees; dilapidated barns next to tidy, modest homes. It was a road I knew well as a passenger. Driving it myself made the expanse much smaller. His mother answered the door and embraced me. She and I had no quarrel; evidence, I would learn, of her recognition that the entire affair was a petty one. Then my friend came to the door. He was a little more heavily set than he had been four years prior when we last spoke. I cracked a joke that made the years vanish, prompting him to drop his head in laughter and reveal a head covered by far less hair.
More than just time had aged him. He slouched a little and walked slowly, seemed meeker and less self-assured. He had always been confident and wayward. I had to remind myself that despite our instantaneous mutual comfort, nearly five years had passed. Our inside jokes had not gotten outside, but between our meetings the entirety of university had transpired, trips abroad had been enjoyed, and jobs and loves were had and lost. Whatever remained ‘in common’ was whatever rested in suspended animation from when I saw him last in 2015 at the apartment at Yonge and Bloor. Despite these differences, the sight of him evoked the same feeling one gets when periodically reencountering and recognizing an old Mother’s Day card written at age seven. You know it when you see it.
Eventually, after lunch and hours of old-school Xbox, there came a lull. I expected an explanation. He must have known that I was waiting for one; but none came. The past years and the decade they belonged to were ending. For nine of those ten years, we both were in school or contemplating absconding from it. I can only infer that something in that time was significant enough to humble him. And it was he who was in the wrong, as his text admitted. In addition to receiving no answers, I could not ask any questions to begin the conversation, because it was he who had to speak first. The only questions could be for clarification and asked only once he had begun. He never did. Since we did not speak about the argument, I could not and still cannot tell what specifically prompted the entire reconciliation. Was it enough that he replied to my reaching out?
As all of this came to my attention, I could not shake the sense that my newly legal mind was becoming increasingly reverent of procedure. Per sitcom wisdom, it is never good to expect or insist upon a procedural or specific apology. Selfishly, I felt I was made more whole, if for no other reason other than for putting a dislodged piece of a completed childhood back in its proper place. That much was done. I contented myself that no explanation was needed. We all falter, in our own eyes and others’. And so, I was able to end 2019 and the decade in a restorative way. So, yes, new friends can be invaluable, but as we step into 2020 and beyond, let us not forget that the faces of old friends are a mirror and a window; we are only ever who we no longer are.