When I think of the expression, "two peas in a pod", I am reminded of the extraordinary bond I have with my best friend, Wendy. I've always been a "woman's woman", meaning I've always enjoyed the friendship and company of other women, and I've always had a number of very good friends no matter what my age or stage in life. I even have a few friends I've managed to keep since early childhood, and we've got the bond of history on our side even though we aren't able to see each other or talk very often (one is in Tampa and the other in Seattle). My women friends have always been so important to me and I have always tried to work at my friendships and not take them for granted.
But Wendy and I have a friendship that is in a class by itself. A lot of people feel that the term "soulmate" applies only to romantic love, but Wendy and I both believe we ARE soulmates, without the romance and the sex. (Years ago, before she fell in love with her husband and we were two single 20-something roommates, having a high old time for ourselves, we used to joke that wouldn't it just be so much easier if we were lesbians because we were the perfect "couple" in every other respect. But alas... we love each other a lot -- just not in "that" way.)
What else would you call it but "soulmates" when two people can look each other in the eye, not say a word, and know exactly what the other person is thinking? Like the time we went shopping for Wendy's wedding gown, and we drove all the way out to Brooklyn to the famous Kleinfeld's (which has since relocated to Manhattan). Sitting in the lobby waiting for Wendy's bridal gown consultation, a grandmother walked by us... wearing spandex leopard-print pants. I thought, "Sweet Jesus, what was she thinking?" and just then I caught Wendy's eye and it was all we could do not to burst out in hysterical laughter... because she was thinking the exact same thing. As soon as we had a moment alone, we totally lost it. Not only did she find the exact wedding dress she wanted (at a sizable discount) and matching bridesmaids' gowns, we had that mental image of leopard stretch pants on a too-old-for-it woman to keep us laughing all day. Even now, that's one of our "remember when" moments.
Wendy and I met in 1984 when she came to work in my department, the finance area of a large insurance company. I thought she was nice enough but we didn't get to be friends right away. Wendy tells me now that I was kind of stand-offish at first, and she's probably right; shortly before she arrived on the job, there had been another girl working there who had befriended me quickly and later proved to be a royal back-stabbing bitch. So maybe I was a bit gun-shy, determined not to let someone bamboozle me again. But Wendy and I both lived a fair commute away from the office in the same general direction, and one night we decided to stop and get a drink on the long drive home. We stayed for dinner, and found we had lots to talk about. And that was, as Bogey would say, "the beginning of a beautiful friendship".
A few months later we went on our first vacation together -- Club Med on Paradise Island (what happens at Club Med STAYS at Club Med, so I won't tell you what we did but suffice to say there was a LOT of beach time, dancing and G&T consumption). I got a horrible sunburn on my FEET at a beach barbecue where it was so hot I basically stood IN the water all day, and I learned that Wendy has a fear of fish -- even the pretty little tropical kind.
Not long after that great vacation we decided we were both ready to move out of our parents' houses and we found an apartment together, the top two floors of a big old house in a wonderful upscale town where we could walk to all the local bars and have wonderful parties on our deck. Within about 2 years, Wendy met Steve, the man she eventually married, and she moved out to be with him. A year later, they were married, and within a few years, the children started coming -- there are now four of them, and they all call me "Aunt Lisa".
We've seen each other through therapy to deal with our respective "issues"; broken hearts; embarrassing moments (which we tease each other mercilessly about but reveal to no one else, not even her husband); professional transitions and successes; and traumatic times, including my reuniting with my father after 26 years, her youngest child's fight against leukemia (and her current remission) and her dealing with her late father's estate nightmare after he died in a car crash just a year ago. We've pretty much been through it all together, and our friendship has survived and evolved along with our individual survival and evolution.
The interesting thing about being best friends and soulmates with Wendy is how very, very different we are in almost every respect -- both inside and out. I'm more talkative, social and extroverted; Wendy tends to say less and needs fewer people around her. I'm single and childless, she's the total opposite of both those things. She likes her family life and putting down roots, while I get bored and need to change my living arrangements every so many years. She's blond, I'm a natural brunette currently masquerading as a red-head. She's leaner and trimmer (she was a rock-hard size 4 before she had her four kids, but even now she's a lot thinner than I am), I've had a weight problem my entire adult life. She likes to work out, I hate it. When we were roommates and before she started her family, she was a smoker, I was a non-smoker (but we even managed to work THAT out in our living arrangements). We don't always see things eye to eye and we don't approach problem-solving in the same way. Even our astrological signs are not supposed to be that compatible - I'm a Taurus on the cusp with Gemini and she's a Libra on the cusp with Scorpio (and Scorpio is the astrological polar opposite of Taurus).
You might say it's a case of opposites attracting, but the truth is that despite our many differences, we don't FEEL like "opposites". It's the subtle yet important things we share in common that really makes this friendship so amazing. Despite our differences, we seem to share a similar outlook and perspective on life and on people. We both tend toward the slightly sarcastic and cynical. We both have had imperfect childhoods with imperfect families with whom we have learned to make peace in one way or another. We shared a common profession in our younger days, both going into computer programming. We shared an apartment and even had the same great therapist once. And even now that our different lifestyles mean that we can't spend a lot of time in each other's company, when we do manage to talk on the phone or get together, we share OURSELVES, no holds barred, no faking who we are to compete with or try to impress the other one. It's just REAL.
For the record (and Wendy, in case you were ever wondering), I think one of the secrets of our friendship is what we each contribute to the other. For my part, I admire and respect Wendy more than she realizes, for her inner strength and for the person she has created herself to be, despite having had virtually no positive support or role models growing up. To me, she is the very definition of "it's not what happens to you in life, it's what you choose to DO with it that matters", because she looked at what was around her and said to herself, "I want something DIFFERENT" -- and then she went out and made it happen. Wendy has not had an easy life, and even now there are things in her life that continue to push her almost to the breaking point, but she never gives up and she keeps moving forward, working toward something better. And that, I think, is what I love and respect most about her. Because whenever I am feeling whiny and sorry for myself, I only have to think about my best friend and what's she's been through to remember that if she can do what she's done, then I can do better, too. She makes me want to be a better person.
What we have is a soul-level compatibility that defies rational explanation. It's the kind of compatibility that really makes me believe in past lives... we must have known each other many times before to have developed this kind of closeness and kinship. A friendship like this, one that is truly filled with non-judgmental unconditional love and acceptance -- not to mention a LOT LOT LOT of laughter and good times -- is something that makes me feel incredibly blessed and fortunate.
I picture Wendy and I, many years from now -- her four children all grown up, out on their own, maybe some of them creating grandchildren (will that make me GREAT-Aunt Lisa then?) -- and us once again going on some wild and crazy adventure together like we did when I was 23 and she was 21. We'll leave her husband (and my boyfriend or husband, if I have one) at home and just go off and hang out together, just like we did in our youth. We won't drink like we used to (she doesn't drink anymore and I haven't been able to hold my liquor that well since I passed 30) but we'll find other ways to have a good time. We'll create even more memories to add to the hundreds we've already created.
And one day, at least another 40 years from now I hope, one of us will depart this life before the other -- I hate to even think about it -- but I know it will be OK because, being soulmates, we're certain to meet again in another time and another place. Maybe next time around, we will be mother and child, sister and brother, or husband and wife, instead of best friends.
Or maybe we've already been there and done all that already... so we'll just go off and be two compatible Bold Souls, floating off into the greater Universe, hand in hand. Like two peas in a pod.
*Photo of Wendy and I, taken in the living room of our old apartment, circa 1985-86. I still have that court jester costume... but not the permed hair. God, were we ever that young?
