Happenstance – it’s a melodic word. There are many blessing
moments to be enjoyed through happenstance. Through the happenstance of re-connections
made through Facebook a small group of women have gathered together with the
connections we made in our high school years, over 44 years ago in Little
Flower Catholic High School for girls, in Philadelphia. We were empowered with youthful energy
and starry-eyed ideals although, raw with emotions and raging hormones.
Today we’d
like to think our emotions are not so ruled by our hormones, but rather by the
trappings our lives over the last four decades. As one of the girls stated at
one of our get-togethers, “it’s like we picked up where we left off in 1972.” And
so we have. Only now, instead of peace
sign earrings, hip hugger jeans and Flower Power tee shirts, we have found that
we don’t want too much hugging our hips, we wear our tee shirts as loose as we
can get them but still like those Peace Sign ear
rings.
rings. 
We survived adolescence and are surviving middle age pretty
much in the same fashion, mostly by simply being present and listening to each
other. Our high school years were not
much different than our waxing elder years. We celebrate, we mourn, we whine,
we hug.
Through the unfortunate happenstance of someone getting sick
and unable to attend the Broadway performance of Al Pacino in China Doll, I
received a last minute invitation to spend a day in New York with this group of
girls. I gladly accepted her ticket, scoured the internet for the reviews about the performance
and then sulked. The critic reviews were scathing. The weather was iffy and I found
that I had to drive, driving is not usually an issue, but lately have been having issues
with driving across bridges, an unavoidable chore when you live along the
Delaware river.
 |
| Burlington Bristol Bridge |
Although I recently learned waning hormones in women can cause
this anxiety ‘issue’ with driving across bridges, I still had to cross one of
our New Jersey drawbridges into Pennsylvania, to meet up with our travelling
crew. I got over it, literally and figuratively.
Once at our gathering point we piled into one vehicle and
were on our way up the New Jersey turnpike to New York city. Along the way we chatted
about how we were mopey and whined about getting up and on the road early on a
Saturday. Eventually the conversations segued into what we always end up
talking about, our kids, our grandkids, our jobs and our own aches and pains.
We were fortunate that parking was close to the theater and
our chosen lunch spot. As we navigated the
crowded New York sidewalks, we were
accessorized with what has become essentials for day trips, a cane, a walking
stick and a wheelchair.
By the end of the day the two of us that whined the most
about the early start and often whine and complain of our bad knees, felt like
we were athletic rock stars for the day. I found myself very aware and grateful
for the blessing of my “good peasant stock”.
To quote a friend, it’s like a “God Giggle”. God tweaked my nose saying,
“See, you’re not doing so badly after all, stop whining about your aging body.
Move along.”
There can be heartfelt conflict in taking ‘me’ time. There
are days when I need to escape from the matriarchal mothering demands of my
multigenerational household, as do more than a few of my friends in this
very special group of strong women.
“I will go before you and make the crooked places straight.”
Isaiah 45: 2
"Forever we will be true!"
