“DF, can you help me.”

I was distracted, over tired, I had just fumbled through an interview with a man that my friend would spend the rest of the evening teasing me about. I looked over and she was sitting on the bench, her shoes in her hands.

“I can’t tie them up, can you help me put them on.”

I squatted down, helped her get her foot in her ‘manly’ shoes and tied them up.

“Do you want your pants rolled up too,” I asked and without waiting for a reply, rolled up both her pant legs.

I imagine we looked like two 90 year old women, helping each other out, laughing at the randomness of not being able to tie our own shoes. But here we were, less than halfway to 90, not being able to tie our own shoes! 🙂

Laughing, chatting, almost falling over myself I noticed him quietly sitting in the lobby waiting and in the process of his waiting, being entertained (badly perhaps) by our laughing and non-linear conversation about nothing.

“She’s my best friend, from Sweden,” I explained.

“Well I am Canadian,” she clarified.

“Yes she is Canadian but she’s originally Panamanian,” I cut-in

“Oh,” he said, looking at us with a sideways look that I interpreted as ‘These girls are crazy-bats!!’

“Her husband stole her to Sweden,” I complained.

“He’s not Swedish, he’s really British, but he was born in Sweden,” she added, as though that would make it better that she now lives in Sweden and not Canada!

It doesn’t make it better and this morning after dropping them at the airport, I felt a tinge of sadness when I unlocked my apartment door. Yes, I got my bed back – but I am also the winner of an empty house where the joking and the sometimes serious conversation is left hanging in the air like a dream.

To wonderful friendships that hurt a little when we have to say goodbye but make up for it the days we get to spend together.