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A couple of weeks ago my friend came to visit. She’s also the godmother of my children. She’s also the reason I launched the last two episodes of the podcast. Anyway, I love this friend. I’ve known her for eight years. But it’s only when people stay with you, when you travel or live or spend real time together, do you truly see all of them.
The visit before last, she saw me. And my husband. Not how we are at dinner or parties or hanging out for a few hours. But in our home. With kids. With stress. With life in this new dimension. And before I dropped her at the train station, driving with white knuckles, commiserating about a fight she witnessed with my husband, I asked her:
“Am I wrong?”
“No,” she said, looking out the window. “But I don’t think he’s wrong either.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think,” she inhaled. “You have a way of speaking ….You have a…Lauren twang, and it can be hard to talk to you sometimes.”
I’m sure I’m butchering the conversation, but that part I remember. A Lauren twang. There was no time to address it, to defend myself. Her train was arriving and even if we had time, I later thought, what would I have even said?
Fragments. Moments, shreds of conversations get lodged in us. This was one of them. Because it hurt, because it took me off guard, because I knew it was true. And since hearing that, I have tried to work on this twang I have.
Anyway, a few months later, she came again. She helped with the kids. She took them to the bakery and bookstore with me. Then she asked if we could stop at CVS to get her some bottled water. “Why?” I asked. “Because I don’t drink tap water.” she said. “I thought you knew this?”
At dinner, she didn’t like the chicken I made. I offered her some leftover pasta from the night before. She reminded me: she doesn’t eat leftovers.
And later that night, lying together on the guestbed, when I asked if she wanted to try Bridget Jones’ Diary, (I hear the new one has good reviews) and she said, “Ew. That movie from the 1900s?” I lost it.
Well, technically, I didn’t lose it. I swallowed it. Then I said, tossing her the remote. “Fine. Then you find something to watch.”
She turned on Netflix. “This movie was pretty good.” The trailer began. It was a rom-com with Amy Schumer, about a slightly overweight single woman looking to get pregnant in her thirties without a man. Then I lost it.
“ARE YOU KIDDING. That is legit the premise of Bridget Jone’s Diary.”
“Whoa. Why are you getting so mad?”
Because! You always do this. You immediately reject things you know nothing about it. Because I think you’d actually like Bridget Jones. It’s about a single woman in her thirties, looking for love. But it’s not just about Bridget Jones. It’s about… “ I turned to face her. It was coming out.
“Has anyone ever told you, you’re a little high maintenance?”
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