With Josie out of high school, people from my school/parent acquaintiverse are fast becoming used-to-knows. When I see them around (Cape Codders don't leave the house without running into someone we know), the lack of obligatory chitchat is kind of liberating, but takes some getting used to after all those years of being in each other's orbits. Twice this week I've bumped into other moms, smiled and said hi, and realized later that neither of us cared to break stride, let alone stop and catch up.
Yesterday, it was someone who'd served on a parent committee with me some years back. The committee did rewarding good work and mostly enjoyed each other's company, but she and I just never clicked one on one. I found her dull, self-involved and rude (she brought a protein bar to every. single. meeting, unwrapping and chewing it loudly enough to distract speakers. Drove me nuts). As to why she disliked me, it could be anything. I'm not everyone's cup of tea. But seeing a familiar face headed my way down a grocery store aisle, I forgot all that, smiled and said "Lenore, hi, how are you?" and she said "good" and kept right on going. This felt weird ("okay...") until I recognized it as an absolute gift.
The other lady is someone whose name I wouldn't even remember if it weren't (ugh) the same as mine, and our preference not to chat in line at the farm stand was mutual and clear. My strongest memory of her is us walking into the high school at the same time one day early in Robin's freshman year. "So are you looking at colleges?" she asked. "Not yet," I responded. "It's only her first year, so we're not really there yet." "Oh, you're there," she said, "whether you know it or not is another thing." Thank goodness she was there to sneer that day, otherwise it's hard to figure how Robin got to college at all! What would we do without our superiors.
Anyway, the up side, and the real point: throughout those school years, there were also parents whose paths never quite crossed mine because our kids weren't on the same teams or in the same classes or friend groups or whatever, but whom I always thought would be fun to get to know if the opportunity arose... and here it is. Now I can ignore people I never liked anyway, and seek out people I did.
Should I send Lenore a thank-you note? Or maybe a protein bar.
