 |
| Amanda and me at her baby shower last month. See my wavy hair? Amanda taught me that. |
Amanda was 25—a friend of a friend's whom I "just had
to meet", because "we had so much in common." I, on the other
hand, had just pushed into my 30s and had given birth to Caedmon 10 months
prior. I was still sporting a prominent baby bump, had the tell-tale ring
of post-partum fuzz at my hairline and traces of spit-up on my
shoulder. I was tired and run-down. An image of a bedraggled dog—the
mother of our childhood puppy, Indee—had been etched in my memory oh-so-many years ago and
resurfaced now each time I looked in the mirror. Once a prized Sheltie, Indee's mom now had fur that was long, stringy, and limp. Her teats hung low and heavy, and she had looked worn
and unkempt. At 16, I didn't have
the maturity to see the bigger beauty in a mother's sacrifice; all I saw was a
wreck of a once-beauty, and I felt sorry for her. Fourteen years later, I had
become Indee’s mom.
This was the state I was in when our matchmaker friend set
up a lunch date for me and Amanda.
Upon arriving, Amanda bounded up to me, bright-eyed, perky,
no baby flab in sight. Her hair tumbled down her shoulders in loose waves,
and she wore a bright blue blouse
with cheery white polka dots and a red felt flower pinned jauntily to
her lapel. This was over a pair of tailored skinny jeans that I knew, for me,
were about a bajillion lunges away. Her ensemble was polished and exclaimed classic yet fun. I'm pretty sure I wore
a potato sack.
But despite our apparent discrepancy in appearance, we,
indeed, had much in common. Too much. This is how our conversation went:
Amanda: "So, Cecilia, what do you do?"
Me: "I was a teacher until I had my son, and now I
stay home with him."
Amanda: "Oh, I used to teach, too. I got my Masters in
Education and then I taught for 5 ½ years. You?”
Me: “Um, no Masters. And I only taught for two years until
the kiddo came…” And then to change the subject, “Um, I really like to bake...”
Not yet sensing the self-effacing danger I was in, I
offered, "When I first moved up here, my sister-in-law and I set up a
bakery of sorts. We sold a few items to friends, but it was mostly for
fun." I chuckled, remembering our bakery that was more of a grown-up lemonade
stand, born out of our shared boredom and temporary unemployment.
Amanda: “Oh, that's so funny! I actually started my own
professional bakery! I make wedding cakes and cupcakes and French macarons. In
fact, I have 200 rattle-shaped sugar cookies cooling at home before I decorate
them for a baby shower this weekend."
My eyes narrowed to slits.
“I run.”
“So do I!”
“I like to craft and make things with my hands.”
“I love crafting. I am in the middle of painting my
dressing room walls with giant gold polka dots, and I have this vintage dresser
I found at a thrift store that I’m refinishing.”
"I have two dogs," I offered, warily.
Need I say it? Amanda, of course, had three.
Our conversation was turning all too predictable, and I was
turning all too pathetic with self-loathing. When we said goodbye, I made a
beeline for my car. Can you blame me that I wasn't super keen on furthering this
demoralizing friendship with Amanda?
Later that night, while getting ready for bed, I
related the day's earlier events to Wayne. "It was just weird," I said, "how much we
have in common. It's like she studied my life but somehow did everything
better.” "It’s Ceci 2.0!" He grinned at his joke, because
this was clearly amusing to him.
I turned my head haughtily away, and as I did so, I caught
the heavily-bagged eye of Indee’s mom in the mirror. He was right. Amanda was
the younger, cuter, more successful, less lumpy version of me. She was, indeed,
Ceci 2.0. And I did not like it one bit. I quickly waved it off, though. It didn't
matter that there was a beta version of me jogging with her three dogs around
my town, because I had no intentions of pursuing this friendship.
But Amanda had a different idea. Not only was she younger,
cuter, and more successful, she was also friendlier and more generous, and so
shortly after our lunch date, she called to hang out again.
"Aw, I'm sorry, but I'm busy next week," I
said.
"The next week, then?" was Amanda's reply.
I pretended to flip through my planner. "You know, I
have this thing..."
"No problem,” Amanda chirped, “my calendar is open the
following week!"
Apparently, she was also dogged and relentless. There
were only so many "things" I could be involved in, so eventually, we
settled on a date to meet up and craft.
Over fabric shopping and reupholstering our chairs, I found
out that she, too, owned the same yellow paisley picture frame that was sitting
in my guest room (of course), that we both got married on vineyards (where
else?), and get this, the tag lines to our bakeries, that we had come up
with on our own years before, were worded almost exactly the same: my Sweet treats for those sweet occasions
to her Sweet treats made to order for all
occasions (I mean, what the heck?!). It was unnerving.
But then I also learned about Amanda's classroom and how
she stuck mustaches on all her students one year for a class picture,
her unsuccessful efforts to end her tutoring gig that somehow
resulted in an addition of more hours to her already busy schedule, and
that, when we got deeper, she had battled extensively, sometimes fiercely, with
her self-image in college and is now all the stronger for it. And that's when
something began to change. Against my initial will, Amanda was fast becoming a
friend. When we said goodbye, this time, I was the one who asked when we could
hang out again.
Later on, we would collaborate on numerous crafting
projects and make frequent trips “to town” (what I’ve dubbed Roseville, our
closest city with an Anthropologie and Crate and Barrel), and I began to trust
Amanda’s friendship, as well as her sense of style. It was over these
subsequent trips that Amanda helped me out of my post-partum jeans-and-loose-cotton-tee rut, and challenged me with more flattering silhouettes, bold
colors, and pairing—gasp—patterns with patterns (who am I kidding; I’m still
not that brave). And over clothing racks and lunch, we’d share more stories of
life—listening, relating, and offering advice when applicable.
It has been almost two years now, and Amanda has become
one of my dearest companions. I am so thankful that I—or Amanda, really—didn't
let my cattiness and insecurities get in the way of what has become a true-blue
friendship.
Amanda will be having her first baby in January (a
boy—another thing we will have in common), and I can genuinely and passionately
say that I am so excited for her in this next life chapter, and to be able to
share all the ups and downs of running after a little one. And if, though unlikely, she ends up looking and
feeling like Indee's mom, I'll be there to tell her that I've, too, been there.
And we'll commiserate, and do some crunches, and go shopping, and laugh at,
yet, another shared experience between my second edition and me.
