My friend Bec is one of the best people I know. She’s more like a sister to me, than a friend, actually. She more or less grew up in our house throughout much of her childhood, my mom being her primary caregiver. She lived diagonally across the street from us. Her mother was a high power attorney in Princeton and her dad was a spy, although she didn’t find out about her dad until much later in life. She came to our house when she was four-years old, and stayed there until her parents divorced several years later, and her mom chose to relocate the two of them to Pennington, probably for the shorter commute and more quality time with her only child… although hindsight being what it is, who knows whether the move was motivated by a desire to insulate her from our family?
Fortunately, our friendship/sisterhood didn’t suffer from the distance. In fact, it grew stronger. We stayed in touch by phone, wrote letters (as there was no e-mail back then), and visited each other often. Her mother would meet my mother more than halfway and she’d stay with us for weekends, or vice versa. Looking back, it’s almost like my family retained a sort of partial custody. She was a de-facto Donnelly, as far as we were concerned. I don’t think I knew how much she meant to us, to me, until much later though. I had a lot of growing up to do. When we were kids, we interacted like typical siblings. I would boss her around and she would take interpersonal cues from our family dynamic… which is natural of course, yet frightening in retrospect.
In fact to this day, my mother wonders if she’s ok. If she feels we did right by her? More specifically, if she feels my mother did right by her?
I assure her she’s more than fine. I don’t want to speak for Bec, but it’s not as if our family was so horrible. We were simply your typical, repressed, nuclear family struggling with everyday financial woes, obsessive/compulsive disorders, apathy, rage, condescension, arrogance, aloofness, and addiction – recovered or otherwise.
I think it served as a rather petri dish of sorts. We become what we know, or a reaction thereof. I’m glad to see that Bec took what she “knew”, then shaped for herself a new reality. Her life is rich with art and invention, drawing from a seemingly neverending wellspring of inspiration and awe. She moves about the world with a joyful spirit. She’s naturally cheerful and trusting, a quality that’s both refreshing and staggering in this day and age, especially considering that she resides in the concrete jungle of NYC. She does things like quitting cushy day jobs to pursue a career making video art. She delves into corners of the mind, the spirit, the loins, to craft a compelling product that is dizzying in it’s boldness and truth. She lives organically, with the faith that wherever she may roam, she will surely find her next muse. Where there is impetuousness and adventure, there exists a striking balance of poise and preparedness. She will coordinate her daily goings on to ultimately serve her deepest longing. For instance, her purchase of a one way ticket to Iceland. She’ll see to it that her affairs are in order so that she may journey forth and return whence the spirit moves her.
Plain and simple: I adore her, and I am blessed beyond measure to know her… or better yet, be related to her.
