The Flight of the Robin

Robin and I met because we were in science class at the same lab table. We became friends because we had the same birthday. And we had one of those epic friendships. Where you do all kinds of stuff together and you talk about whatever’s on your mind without filtering it, and you just exist as yourself, comfortable, because weird was status quo between us. Seriously, I think I knew she was best friend material when I noticed that she wore a bracelet made out of a melted toothbrush. That's how awesome she was.

We were both fringe people, I think. I think that ended up being what made us better friends than the rest of our groups. There were two groups of people we hung out with together. One were the church kids. They all went to church together. Except me and Robin didn’t. I went to another church and she didn’t go to church. The other group were the smart kids. They’d all gone to elementary and middle school together. Robin and I had come from separate schools, but separate from theirs too. So they had some kind of camaraderie that we weren’t part of.

We all got along fine, but I think that both of us always felt like we didn’t truly belong. So we sort of had our own thing going even though we ran in the same circles. We were with the brilliant kids who got great grades, but our grades didn’t make us salutatorians (well, maybe she was. I don't remmeber now). We were both in the music ensembles, but we didn’t live and breathe it like some people did. We weren’t first chair material. We were both religious people who knew God, but we weren’t part of the pastor’s kids inner circle that understood things that we didn’t. So being different made us the same.

I was clueless and it took me a long time to realize that she and I were more different from each other than I thought, too. We were so similar. We liked so many of the same things. And we thought the same way. And I always knew there was a sadness that followed her around but I didn’t really put it all into place until later. I always felt like there was something I didn’t know about her, but I didn’t realize that her hiding was a way of protecting herself.

We spent four years together in high school, but after I got married I felt a rift developing. Too clueless to see that she’d sort of shut me off, I pursued our friendship thinking it was me. I know it partly was, but I guess part of it was her too. And I wish I’d known what to do then. But it seemed like I’d lost her. After a year or so I stopped trying. I missed her horribly, but I sort of figured things had just ended and there wasn’t much to do to change it.

I’ve written about her before on here. I just never wanted our friendship to end. I’d pray for her sometimes. I’d think of her often, and I kept most of the things I had that reminded me of her. Batman and Robins, pictures, stupid notes we’d written, moose slippers. They hurt to see but I didn’t want to forget her either. So I just kept her in my heart.

I’d just prayed for her a few months ago, and just sort of decided to let it all go, when out of the blue I got a message on facebook from her. What a surprise. What an answer to prayer. I thought I’d lost her forever, but that's not true anymore. I know this, because she sent me a picture on facebook of a Batman and Robin monster keychain… and I think that just sealed the deal. Things are different, but in a lot of ways the same. And I’m overjoyed to be sharing life again with her. The moral of the story is, if you don’t want to give up on someone, and even if you do want to, just don’t.