Sisters and Wives

With less than three hours of sleep, Joey and I walked across the busy Chicago street from the parking lot to Union Station. We walked through its echoing halls past the Blackhawks merchandise vendors, past tired men sleeping on benches with briefcases for pillows, until we reached the cozy terminal where I would board the train. Someone had a whole theme song set for their text message notification, and so the terminal was filled with the ruckus cell phone music, chattering travelers, and the counter agents announcing last calls. An old man next to us coughed and read his newspaper. We sat for a whole hour, then embraced for five minutes, and just before I stepped into the cold, cement tunnel we kissed each other goodbye.

I became a different person. A tired but courageous woman, traveling alone. And I went to Carbondale to see my best friend.

In another life, we would have been sisters. Except I don't believe in "other lives", so I suppose we just make up for it by being friends in this one. We forged a friendship over lost loves and black coffee and twisted relationships with older brothers--she has one, I have two, but we both know how it is. If you have older brothers, you know how it is too. 

For eight days and seven nights we reforged our friendship, with more coffee and more intense conversations about brothers and our husbands and our lives. We are older, now. Stronger, now. We share a sisterhood--because we are sisters to brothers, but also to each other. We also now share the "wife life," a strange and wonderful place to exist. 

We played video games, walked through the woods around her apartment (and saw a dead snake!), went shopping and talked deeply of all the things that can't truly be expressed on Facebook chat or even on the phone. We went to a hippie town and a garden. We watched movies, but did it in bits and pieces because we would start talking. We sat in the sunshine, and watched all the rain, and had a mini photo shoot. (See the photos at her tumblr here.) It was a beautiful week. 

I honestly didn't take that many pictures. I don't really know why, I think I was just too focused on being there. Which isn't so horrible, I guess. These are just some of my favorites.

It's a lie, you know... that quote about how friendships don't change because of distance or time. They DO change, but that doesn't mean those changes are bad. It means that we have grown--we grow apart, as in separately. Growing by ourselves without each other, but not away from each other. And then we come together again, we measure new branches and appreciate blossoming flowers in the other person. Friendships change. It doesn't mean there's something wrong. It usually just means they got better.