Three Friends...Forty Two Years Apart

Three Friends Over Time.

Forty two years ago these three girls spent Spring Break in San Miguel de Allende. It was our senior year of high school. I spearheaded the trip because I had been going to San Miguel for six years already and wanted to share this magical place with my friends. 

Me and Mary 

Mary and Emily                                                 

We went by TRAIN! Overnight in a sleeping car  from Nuevo Laredo to a field NEAR San Miguel. Someone picked us up I guess. I don't really remember. I do know another friend's uncle drove us back to the train stop and we sat in the back of his truck, drinking beer and nibbling on crackers in the middle of this field, until the train came. Frequently I look back and wonder how I knew how to do this stuff.    

Waiting for the train. 

In a field. 

With cocktails. 

Of course. 

The train trip was memorable mostly for the flasher who was outside of our window in Monterrey. We were stopped for over an hour and this lovely gentleman in his official flasher raincoat stood outside our window putting on a show. One of us- no names will be named- stayed glued to the window screaming "O my God! Look what he's doing now. O no. Don't look."  And if we tried to peek, she pushed us away so we didn't interfere with her view.  

While there, we shopped. 

We ate street food.

Mary takes her chances with some churros.

We went to the bars and met handsome Mexican boys. 

Me and Eduardo. 

I believe we also talked those boys into buying us drinks.

And dancing. 

Even in 1974 there were photo bombers.

Fingers and toes were painted. 

 Apparently that red shirt got passed around. 

The day after I got home from Mexico 

I fell off a horse and broke that leg...

And then we came home, graduated and grew apart. We went to different schools in different states or - in my case- a different country.     

I have seen these ladies at high school reunions and a funeral over the last 40ish years. Possibly five times total. (More really, but not much.)

Last Monday we had lunch. 

A three and a half hour lunch. 

So much has changed yet so little.  

Mary, Emily, Me. 

No handsome Mexican men to buy us cocktails this time. 

And we've improved with age, no? 

It is now irrelevant which "groups" we are in and surprisingly we all expressed the fact that we felt marginal/invisible/unimportant in high school even though that wasn't true.  Perceptions. 

They are extremely talented and hard working women. While I have loved my life and think going to school in Mexico certainly formed me, I do occasionally regret not getting a degree. I just couldn't settle on what I wanted to be when I grew up. I'm still wrestling with that. 

And this lunch was at a new restaurant for me so there's another notch on No. 44's belt. 

We ate at Seasons 52 in Houston City Centre.  Fabulous crab cakes and salads.  We were a boring group and basically all had the same meal. Only the salads varied. No worries. Our meals were fresh and delicious. 

The best part of the day? A phrase which came up and I have co-opted as my rallying cry for the year, the decade, the rest of my life.  

"I'm in." 

Works, doesn't it?