A brave new world.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive."

  ~Anäis Nin

Today my blades, I strolled through Princeton with my very first best friend in the whole wide world. Gretchen.

She lived up the block from me growing up. She had a Barbie swimming pool. She had video games. She had the happiest smile. And every kid wanted to be her best friend.

We were rollerskating waitresses together in her parent's basement. We used Nexxus hair conditioner on our barbies in the bathtub.

We went to Manasquan together with her parents in the summer.

We ate crabapples from the tree across the street from her house.

We carried Madame Alexander dolls together across the street to the Peddie School campus. We pretended (or "betended" as I put it) that we were the "last women on the frontier."

Too much Little House on the Prairie perhaps.

Her dad would drive us to Cranbury to eat ice cream cones from Harold's. He'd "boogie the car" all the way over. And they always had new cars because her Dad owned a dealership and so they forever had new smelling Oldsmobiles...

We belonged to the same swim club -- Sky View! She had a white tag around her ankle and I had a black one. She could swim 3 foot deep and I could go off the diving board with my mom or dad watching.

We belonged to the same church and wanted to be Olivia Newton-John. We even told our Sunday school teacher.

We put on a dance for the local retirement home in our town -- it was like a boy/girl Dance fever kind of dance to Rock With You.

I can only imagine their reactions when I swung her around like Tony Romero!

Yep, we did it all... 

We both got cabbage patches at the same time -- we sang the same disco songs, we dug her mom's spaghetti, she called it "pasghetti" and the salads in the little wooden bowls.

We played together every snow day. Usually at my house.

I used to let her win at Asteroids.

She let me sit next to her when all the other kids were giving her stickers and stationary to win the spot alongside her in homeroom.

And we both wore Danskin leotards and imagined ourselves famous dancers, actresses, gymnasts...

Then, we grew up and out of each other for some years. Quite a few years actually.

Then, with the arrival of our beloved Facebook, we reconnected.

And we text every single day of our lives. With Emoticons. Silly little emoticons on the Iphone. See? We're first best friends again. Little girls in the neighborhood. Our own secret language rediscovered. Our own private games. Our own prioritizing of one another. Our own original love restored.

And today, we met for ice cream at Thomas Sweets in Princeton and we walked along the leafy streets with their intelligent, cozy homes with bright green grass in the front yards and elderly couple sitting on front porches together or moms greeting their children off the bus or one lunatic laughing like a hyena on someone's front lawn. Zoiks.

But, as we walked along, I felt like -- life is restored. 

My high school reunion. Reconnecting with my s-two ex-boyfriends -- high school and college.

My two closer friends from 7th Grade.

My new friend in his play in the Hamptons.

And Gretchen on our ice cream walk through Princeton.

Now I sit in my bed downstairs at my best friend's house. Tomorrow is her young daughter's birthday party.

Sigh.

All is good in the world.

As I contemplate this time in my life, I feel as if I am going to sneeze. A sneeze of new love. Of massive success. Of moving home.

We shall see where the winds of life will sway me.

But for now, my little blades, this is one happy girl.

Whose past and paster and pastest have connected with her present. And like a dab of color dye, all of the waters of my life are blending into an astounding set of swirling colors. 

Just like when I was little. And I saw how everything and everyone was connected. I see this again.

MAGIC.

Prep school, projects, first friend, pregnant best friend, new movie star friend, old family friend, junior high friends, my other half living nearby home again, my Dad and my stepmom, Molly and Gatsby...

We are all connected.

And on this note, let us all remember and honor the worlds that our friends bring to us, enlighten inside of us.