Changes...


On Saturday, I had lunch with some of my girlfriends and it occurred to me how much we've changed over the years. Sara is in medical school and has a nine-month-old son named Levy who is adorable--even when he has an ear infection. Nadia is now married and pregnant with her first child. Fia is married, has a lovely son named Ville and is pregnant with her second child. I am married and will be celebrating my eighth anniversary soon, no kids and waiting to hear from a literary agent who is reading the first four chapters of my novel. Missing from the group was Maitechu, who is in Saudi Arabia with her husband and two-year-old son until July.

At some point, we talked about how things have changed, though we didn't really use ourselves as examples. We talked about some of our male friends and how their lives have changed. Fredrik married Ulrika and they are awaiting the birth of their first child (a boy they will probably name Sixten). Chris and Julie had a baby girl named Holly, left Södermalm and moved to Gröndal. (And we thought Chris would never ever leave Södermalm, but Gröndal is still close to Södermalm...) And Brian has sold his apartment and will be moving to the UK at the end of the month to live with his girlfriend.

There was a time when we all used to see each other on an almost daily basis. We'd have brunch on Sundays, coffee on Saturday, drink far too much beer at Lion Bar--at least during the summer--on Fridays. Monday through Thursday anything could happen. We might end up at the cafe in Kulturhuset or the espresso bar on Horsngatan. Or, more often than not, we were at Blåbär on Upplandsgatan consuming salads and cheesecake and copious cups of coffee.

These days, we're all so busy with other things, or maybe we just don't take the time to meet as often as we used to for various reasons. One thing is certain, we're all getting older--some are more adverse to this than others.

I started noticing gray hairs around my 29th birthday. I don't remember if this bothered me very much though it probably did--at least for a few minutes. Tord has had gray hair since we met--though we like to joke that I am the cause of his loss of his blond hair. Neither of us seems bothered by the fact that we are getting older. The only thing I really miss from being younger is the ability to bounce back quickly from just about anything.

Drank too much last night? No problem...you're twenty-one, you eat a huge breakfast and take a shower and--voila!--you're as fresh as a daisy.

Do the same when you are thirty-seven and you still feel like a zombie two days later.

So I don't care that more gray hairs are sprouting out of my scalp. If it ever bothers me, I'll go to Roddy (who usually cuts my hair when I remember to make an appointment) and ask him to color it for me. But I do miss the energy and the enthusiasm for just about anything that I used to have. And I miss the unbridled optimism I had when I was a teenager. There are moments now when I still have it, but usually I find myself looking for cons when I should be concentrating on pros.

But the inner-child in me is alive and well. She makes an appearance when I least expect it. And even if my appearance is not what it used to be, I am happy.

And that's what matters most.