I always tell Reilly that when she is older she will be surprised at who she will love to see when she comes home to visit. I highly doubt it will be her flashy high school friends. It rarely is. It is usually a few close friends, the kids you went to church with, family friends, and friends from college. It's nearly impossible for her to grasp that she won't care a speck about most of her 1,000 plus Facebook friends. It's really the people we were close to in our formative years that we are overjoyed to see.
Such is the case with my parents' friends. I just love them now. But...wow...were they annoying when I was a teenager. Always in my business, ratting me out to my parents, seeing me places they shouldn't have, lecturing me, and on and on. This is something that Reilly complains about herself on a regular basis. There are just too many people from my life who are in her business!! I try to tell her that the day will come when those annoying people are EXACTLY the people she will be excited to see and reconnect with one day.
Such is the case with my mom's friend, Kathy. My mom and Kathy met when I was in high school and they were both high power, yuppie, CEOs breaking the glass ceiling in the healthcare world in Kansas City. They instantly became great friends. My dad and Cathy's husband, Mike, got along well and our two families spent large amounts of time together. Countless dinners, BBQs, outings etc. I have many memories of coming home from a date or a night out with friends to find Cathy and Mike at the dinner table with my parents, drinking wine, talking, and laughing until the wee hours of the morning.
Kathy has always called my mom "Earth Mother"... I find that hilarious. She is not remotely what I would think of as an "earth-mother-type"...at all. But on the grand spectrum with Kathy and her one child, in a very structured and immaculately posh home, compared to my mom and her five rowdy kids in a very wild and loud home...I get it. Kind of. Kathy loves to talk about how things were at our house. Five kids flying in five different directions, all talking at the same time, absolute chaos, and my mom following it all. Kathy said that she was in absolute awe.
Kathy's daughter, Katy, would come over and just stare wide-eyed at the constant flurry of activities at our house. I used to babysit Katy and knew how different our house was from the one she lived in. But she used to love to come over and once I caught her and her little friends playing "Kristin, Stacey, and Kelley". Hilarious.
When I was a junior in high school Kathy's youngest sister, Lisa, who had just graduated from high school in Iowa came to live with her and we hit it off right away!! I can't tell you the fabulous time the two of us had as we ran wild together. It was awesome. I was at Kathy and Mike's house more than ever and Kathy became even more involved in my life as a result.
Kathy is not a quiet person. She is smart, loud, funny, gutsy, interesting, a little kooky, and never lacks an opinion on anything. Yes, she had a lot to say about my life and activities. At the time I thought she had TOO MUCH to say. I remember many times sitting on a bar stool in her kitchen as she lectured me and Lisa about MANY things. We've laughed together, cried together, I've been yelled at by her, and she has taught me all kinds of interesting things, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Kathy and Mike came to visit this summer and I was so excited to see them...and surprisingly so was Reilly even though the last time Reilly saw Kathy and Mike she was just a little girl. She couldn't wait to talk to someone (non-family member) who knew me when I was exactly her age and could give her the dirt on just the "kind of teenager" I REALLY was back then. Kathy was the perfect person...and boy did she do just that!! Image shattered.
Reilly was in hog heaven hearing her stories. Reilly asked her "So was my mom always a little miss perfect?" Kathy just threw her head back and roared with laughter and said "Do you know how many times I would just look at your mom and shake my head and say to her 'Really Kristin? Really?' and to me she said, "Do you remember all the times I would tell you 'You have exactly five minutes to call your mother and tell her what is going on OR I WILL!!" Reilly ate it up with a spoon.
Now that I am the mother of an obnoxious (I say it with love and as a kindred spirit) teenage girl I am so glad that I had people like Kathy in my life. Raising teenage girls is HARD WORK!! They are mean, they hate you, and they think you are as dumb as a stump. You need cool friends for them to confide in and who will then rat them out to you. That is the only way to survive as a mother...and as an obnoxious teen...who will one day (fingers crossed) turn out to be a pretty great person. So to Kathy...thanks for being my mother's "cool friend"...you still are!! And...to all my "cool friends"...keep up the good work ladies!! It takes a village. :)
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