lost

In the thirteen years between my first year of kindergarten and my first year of college, my family moved five times and I went to nine different schools. I can't say that this particularly bothered me. My method for managing being the new kid all the time was to find one other girl I could be friends with, and then stay close. This worked well enough, enough of the time, and my mom and brother were my social circle when it didn't.

My best friend in sixth grade was the best of the besties. We were both smart kids who didn’t fit the girl mold very well, but weren’t tomboys either. I could be myself with her. I remember hanging out at recess, carefully using a silver pen to color the rocket-shaped erasers we’d won for getting all the quiz questions right in science class, with beautiful results, sure that we were the first kids ever to think of such a thing. She may have been my first love - not crush (that honor goes to Jason Kipp in fourth grade) but...relationship with someone I admired. I loved her brains, her sarcastic wit, that she’d lived all over the world. She was into James Bond novels and Karl Sagan, neither of which I had any idea about. So worldly!

I moved again at the end of the school year. We exchanged sporadic letters for a couple of years. And then we lost touch. My fault, no doubt.

For a long time, I've dreamed of getting back in touch with her. I asked my parents about it once, and I'm sure they told me that they thought they could contact her parents through the magical Christmas-card network that binds military parents of my generation together. "Oh her dad was a public affairs officer? So-and-so was a public affairs officer. They're a tight-knit group..." But it never happened and when I tentatively asked again a few years later, they couldn't remember saying that.

While cleaning out old boxes before we moved to Switzerland, I came across the last letter I ever received from her. It said she was in London but would be doing an exchange program the next year…to Switzerland!...and gave her address here. A lead! When we got settled I wrote a polite note to her host family, saying we had been friends but lost touch and did they know where she was now? I didn’t particularly expect a reply, but one came only a week later: yes, she lived with us, but we’ve lost touch with her too.

The internet is less helpful than one might hope. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn…she’s got a common name and she's lost among her apparently thousands of namesakes. If she even has the same name any more - just because I was too stubborn to change my name when I got married doesn't mean every other woman is. But a couple of years ago I found one tantalizing lead to a woman who worked at the Spy Museum in Washington, DC. Spies...James Bond...maybe? I sent a message to someone who appeared to be the same person on Facebook, and never got a reply.

And then on our trip to DC, Daniel wanted to visit the Spy Museum, and I remembered this. What if I asked there and they knew this person and I could meet her and find out whether she was my long-lost friend? Nah. But what if? Nah. But... And we were in the gift shop and I thought come on, Susannah, ask - they'll just say no but you'll regret it if you don't - and I asked, and to my great surprise the nice woman stocking the shelves replied, "oh, yes, that sounds like my boss! She's great, do you want to meet her? Just a minute, I'll go see if I can find her."

And suddenly there I was standing in the Spy Museum Store with my stomach in a knot, and Christopher was trying to show me some cool souvenir he'd found and I couldn't focus on what he was saying because WHAT IF THIS IS IT??

It wasn't.

The employee came back and said her boss was gone for the day but gave me her card, and I sent an email that night, and she didn't write back.

And what am I hoping for, anyway? A friend, sure, but what are the chances that after so many years we'll have anything in common? Maybe it's more like validation - the kind that less nomadic people take for granted - that my childhood existed and that someone other than my immediate family remembers it?

I should let it go. The thing is...she's not google-able, but I am. Maybe, just maybe, someday, she'll find me.

Mission: Incomplete.