Still Us

In January 2004, I had a new baby and a 3 year old. I had taken 6 months off work and was home with the two of them. I didn’t know anyone else with children, the holidays were over, winter felt endless, and I was losing it a little.

One day I picked up a copy of Tulsa Kids and saw an event for a moms’ club. I decided to go. Of course I was nervous walking in, but one woman came right up and started talking to me. She had a son close to my older son’s age and was so warm that I immediately felt grateful I had come.

I joined the club, got placed in a playgroup, and somehow ended up joining a second one too. We took turns hosting, and those playgroups were 100% more for us than they were for the kids. We talked for hours about everything. At that point in my life, they were a lifeline.

I liked so many of those women instantly. They were funny, intelligent, strong women. Some had walked away from successful careers for a while, and we were all trying to figure out new mom life. More than twenty years later, I think I could pick right back up with any of those women like no time had passed.

One of my close moms’ club friends and I recently reconnected with another playgroup friend we hadn’t seen in at least fifteen years. We were shocked to be reminded that she had only lived in Tulsa for three years. Three years! And the bond was still there. She had the same demeanor, the same laugh, and somehow looked almost exactly the same.

The Same Women, Twenty Years Later

My friend commented that she was still completely herself. She had said something similar to me when she visited Sevilla. I made some silly sarcastic comment, and she said, “I’m glad to see you’re still Adrienne.”

Our kids are all adults now. Between us, we’ve experienced career changes, moves, illness, death, divorce, and personal growth. We’re wiser versions of ourselves, and I think we’ve softened in some ways and toughened up in others. We let more go now, and we’re also less willing to put up with things we shouldn’t.

But they’re still the same women I adored back then, and I’m still me. Reinvention doesn’t have to mean becoming an entirely different person. We can change tremendously and still be recognizable to the people who knew us before.

I’m forever grateful for those friendships, including the ones that faded when life moved on and the ones that somehow still feel easy more than 20 years later.

💛

Reflection Question: If someone who knew you twenty years ago saw you today, what would they say is still unmistakably you?

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