Life Is Funny That Way

 

 

Life is funny sometimes. A few months ago I was reading through all of the birthday wishes on Facebook, thinking again how nice it is that so many people take the time to say happy birthday on Facebook. 

Yeah, I know, they tell you whose birthday it is and they supply all of the words, in case you don’t have time to think up something clever on your own, or in case it’s someone you only know on FB, rather than as a family member or an in-real-life friend. The internet has made it easy – and sometimes vastly impersonal – to contact people.

I don’t usually single people out for a blog, and I’m not naming names, so I hope this isn’t embarrassing.

The day after my birthday, while I was finishing up thanking people who had left messages on my feed or in my notifications, I noticed what I call a “Facebook email” from a friend. I was surprised by a lot of it, and she seemed a little surprised that we had so much in common politically, socially and even the challenges we’ve faced.

I didn’t know those things about her. She discovered them about me by being on Facebook with me as well as reading my blogs.

A little background. This woman and I were born a day apart in the same hospital. In fact, our mothers were in the same room. I was a preemie, and my mother once told me that her mother said she thought her baby was the smallest she’d ever seen until she saw me. In fact, if I’d been born an hour later, we would have shared the same birthday.

So we’ve kind of known each other since birth. And we were in the same parish, so we saw each other in church on a weekly basis, and then were in school together, I believe for the full 12 years, although we weren’t in many, if any classes together in high school. I’m not even sure if we were in the same class every year in elementary school.

I always considered her my friend, and said hi to her as we were leaving church. We were friendly in elementary school, but we lived a town apart (actually less than a mile apart, but I didn’t know that growing up), so she had friends from her neighborhood. My so-called neighborhood friends were not in my grade, so at recess, I generally did not have friends. 

I did the rounds of the recess yard until I found someone who would let me play with them. If that didn’t happen, I played Jacks by myself or wandered around imagining. I was never me in the recess yard. I was one of my characters.

Since she had her friends, we didn’t often play together at school. It was enough for me knowing that I knew her, and we had our birth “friendship” that somehow always made me feel a connection to her.

When high school ended, I went to Penn State, and she went – wherever it was she went. We lost contact. For me, that happened with most people, although I do have a core of three other people I went to at least part of elementary school and high school with that I’ve generally kept in contact with most of the time since high school graduation. I even went to two of their weddings.

It never seemed strange to me that I didn’t keep in contact with people. Most people thought I was weird or boring or whatever they thought.

I had a friend a year younger that I met in high school. Everyone thought she was my sister. I don’t have any sisters, but even my mother thought this girl looked like she could be my sister. Well, the fake sister moved away at the end of my sophomore year in high school. I was devastated because we had a blast together. I think I was at my funniest when I was around her.

We pledged our undying friendship, like Anne of Green Gables and her bosom friend, Diana, promised to write, and then she moved. We had each other’s addresses. Yet somehow, we never managed to get around to writing. I’ve often wondered what happened to her, and I do think of her often.

And like my “fake sister”, my “birth friend” and I, while not pledging unfailing friendship or promising to write, went our separate ways, and every time there was a class reunion, I’d wonder if she’d be there. I went to most of them.

I only recently discovered how much we had in common. I knew we were both left-handed (I always know which of my friends are left-handed; it’s a lefty thing.). She’s the oldest and only girl in her family, and I think she has two brothers.  I’m the youngest and only girl in my family, and have two brothers. That was pretty much what I knew of our commonalities.

It turns out we both married later (late 30s), never had kids, and we both like big dogs. Apparently we also have some of the same challenges I’ve written about in my blogs in common. It could have acted as a bond between us had we known.

I just never thought people were much interested in me or the things I did.

I don’t know many people who write or are as passionate about writing as I am, so there aren’t many people I can talk with about writing. Most people get bored once you start talking about your characters. After all, according to them, the characters aren’t real. It’s not like them talking about their children. (I suppose they’ve never read The Velveteen Rabbit to know what becoming real really is.)

It made my day to hear someone who, until our reunion in 2023 hadn’t seen me in 50 years, express similar anxieties growing up that I’d had, someone I thought was so together and talented. The idea she expressed, that my writing touched a lot of people was something I never really considered. I don’t think of many of my topics as important.

I always think of myself as being a bit of a nuisance announcing my blog on 3 group pages, my own page and my author page on the chance that a couple of people want to read them. I picture people rolling their eyes and saying, “I wonder what she’s on about this time.”

Yeah, some people may be interested in some of my topics. But I do get worried when the readership numbers drop considerably. I think, oh, did I say something offensive last time? How do I rectify that? Because I get few, if any, comments on my work.

Yes, I try to take into consideration that between Thanksgiving and New Year’s people are busy and just don’t have time to read some silly blog. And I never know what people are behind the readership count.

I always feel like I come off as a bit self-absorbed when I talk about my books and where people can find them. It’s not like I have a real publisher. They’re all self-published, and you won’t find them in bookstores – there are still bookstores, right? 

And I also have to mention my pen name, Bridget McGowan, since you wouldn’t find my books by looking under my given name. So in my defense, I have to let people know about my books if they’re ever going to find them.

I do like talking about my books, though. It isn’t a, “Hey, look at me, I’m some bigshot author,” though, especially since I haven't sold more than 10 of any of them. It’s “Let me tell you about my current best friend.” And that would be the main character of the book.

People look surprised when they ask how many books I have on Amazon and I say 17. I guess they’re expecting me to say one or two. 

The thing is, I’ve written 25. I just don’t have covers for the rest (people who do covers are very expensive, so my husband, Blue Scream of Jeff – read his blogs – has done most of my covers.) I designed two, but he had to do the computer stuff to them, since he won’t teach me how, and I don’t have the program, anyway. So I’m waiting to have covers done for the rest. 

Meanwhile, I’m working on the next novel, with two that I’ve promised to write in mental storage, and another idea in its 5^th month of gestation.

But my birth friend gave me encouragement to keep going, knowing that somehow I’ve touched others with what I had to say. Wow. Who knew?