Old Friends

I spoke with my friend, Ben last night. We met 28 years ago, the last time Saturn hit Scorpio.  I failed to marry my husband 28 years ago when Saturn was in Libra and corrected that error this time. Now I wonder how the Saturn return of Ben and I might play out.

Ben and I met at a low point in both our lives. I had been obliterated at the end of Saturn’s transit through Libra and my life was essentially a shell.  Don’t get me wrong. I was a grinning person, with lots of jokes. I did not feel bad about myself but I truly had no one at all.  My family had been wiped out, my relationships, my friendships, my job, everything was gone.  I told Ben last night, I was not depressed at that time. I just had no idea what to do or even exactly what I had done wrong.   To this day, I am confused about that time in my life…confused about most of my life. He agreed I was dark back then.

I feel we healed each other in those days and we grew each other up. No one really valued me back then, on a deep level. I mean, people liked to work with me.  My customers liked me but I would go home after work and just had no idea what to do with my life. I did not know how to (better) relate to people and, Ben was the person who could see me.  He knew there was something more to me, something of value and he decided to invest in me. He called me, “Gidget with a past” back then which was accurate.

We met working as servers in a restaurant and he was surprised when I said I knew how to tend bar.  When I explained I’d been a bartender from the time I was 15 years old until I was 22, he was intrigued which was a big help to me.  He wanted to hear my story. He wanted to know how the dimpled, Gidget, joke-teller, smart-ass wound up working in a bar as a teen. And why did I stop? To be a waitress was a step down.

I had answers for those questions and the more questions he asked, the more meat he discovered.  It was incredibly healing, that someone take an interest in me the way he did.  We have continued this exploration for close to 30 years now and as deep as we go, we’ve only scratched the surface.

I don’t really fathom, Ben’s presence in my life and I think he’d say the same.

“When I think of friends I have had for 30 years, you’re the list,” he said. I laughed heartily. Ben and Elsa load up to go another round.

When is the last time you showed interest in someone?

Skip to part 2 – What Scorpio Can Do For You what-scorpio-can-do-for-you-hints-around-saturns-transit-through-scorpio/

28 thoughts on “Old Friends”

  1. Last night. I had a good, healing talk with a friend. She is the only one who understands a certain chapter in my life that I thought was over. Through her, I feel blessed to know that it’s not.

  2. Met with a friend on Tuesday who lives on the West Coast, whom I met through work, who always straightens me out-spine and spirit. 🙂

  3. I always show interest in my friends I would hope! I ran into a couple yesterday that I had met at Christmas for the first time, and I asked them all about their daughter and how her life is going. They told me glowing stories about her. I was pleased and delighted that she is having such a cool life. Only, I don’t know if I am only scratching the surface or not. Some friends are very forth coming and others not so much. I think it is really important to have friends that have known you for so long, especially in a world that moves so fast and everyone seems to be already caught in orbit with what they are doing, going to do and have no time for new people in their lives. I am glad the Ben is in your life. He sounds like a very karmic, healing presence.
    I know what you are saying about the Saturn in Libra transits. What happened to you back then is almost happening to me. As Saturn has moved direct again, everyone seems to be disappearing in my life that I really cherish and the one that remains constant, I just have no idea where that relationship is headed. New friendships don’t really materialize much. Except for one, and she’s always busy!

  4. PS: Interesting he compared you to Gidgit..Sally Fields that played her is a Scorpio and she may have some skeletons in the closet…I mean as far as dark things in her life. The book “Gidget” is darker than the show. Lots of sexual tension with her being a young teen hanging out with surfer boys and one of them older. Am I off subject??..lol (Merc in Sag you know?)

  5. Always interested. That has been a problem for me. Need more discretion.

    Gidget the Flying Nun.

    My favorite Sally Field scene was in Norma Rae. She was fighting for unionization night and day. Exhausted, her husband complains she’s not there. She gets pissed, fills a pan with water, puts it on the stove and says you want cookin, there’s cooking. She runs some water, throws some clothes in it, and says you want washin, there’s washin.

  6. Recently & Often. Though I can be guilty of benign neglect–I cherish my LTRs and attempt to sustain/nurture them.

    Last month I reconnected with a dear old friend. It was like we picked up the conversation right where we’d left off without a pause or glitch. 🙂

    Conversely, I reached out to another old friend–my very oldest–and…radio silence. Am dearly hoping it’s due to his hectic schedule & not disinterest/disaffection. Will try again–but am steeled that it’s potentially an amputation. He currently has a lot riding on another oldtime mutual friend who I upset/offput a few years ago. 🙁

  7. @notch: I love it!

    @CP: I hope for your sake you hear from him. That is an awful feeling “radio silence”…

  8. Sounds very Plutonian. I have moon in Pisces in the 8th and Pluto-NN conjunction in the 1st. I can count all of truest friends in my life on one hand.

  9. Thanks Dawn. That’s nice of you to say. I hope so too! If not, well, I understand [I think] his uncomfortable position and certainly won’t hold it against him…Will just have to see if the Wheel brings it [and him] back around some other time.

    Elsa–I am selfishly happy at your enduring friendship with Ben. Through you and your stories I’ve come to cherish him and his insights, wisdom, humor and outlook. [well, your depiction-I know I don’t *know* him, eh?] I’m always excited like a kid at christmas to see a new “Ben Story”. 🙂

  10. I love your Ben stories. They are my favorites.

    I’m glad that you and Ben have been friends for so long.

  11. Avatar
    lilithplutoniangirl

    I didn’t know you and your husband had been together that long! Excuse my n00bness. And Ben seems like the perfect partner in crime 🙂 I have a friend like Ben. A fellow Taurus who I have been friends with for 18 years. Her dad and my dad were best friends as children too since they were 7 ! She straightens me out and I can talk to her about anything pretty much. Also my Libra & Aqua best friends I met them when we were all at rough times in our lives and they have stuck through some really crazy stuff with me and the Libra actually saved my life once. I met them both Around the same time, August-October 2010 and have stuck with them since then!

  12. I love hearing about your friendship with Ben, too! Friendship is a hugely important topic to me; my friends have been family to me. I feel very blessed my best friend’s parents refer to me as their 5th child, LOL.

    Truth be told, many people interest me:) Jupiter in Gemini inconjunct Scorpio Uranus/11th.

  13. Yes, I think I have a Ben too. 🙂 We met – online on a board of all things! – after my breakup from the most important relationship up to date. We bounded over shared sense of humor and, later on, crazy (literally) people we dated. We are in different countries, but have met, the last time when I was already steady with my Husband. He likes this guy a lot too, and he is one of our very few shared FB friends.

  14. @Elsa, we wouldn’t respond if we were bored! No you don’t bore us, at least me. Some things I don’t relate to astrologically, but that’s not your fault. They may just not be hitting anything in mine. Your a very compelling writer. I love your videos too!

  15. I should say “the aspects you are talking about may not be hitting anything significant in my chart”. I think faster than I write :(..lol

  16. I once had a very wise acquaintance Stephen — and unfortunately I didn’t have enough depth of character at the time to truly appreciate the depth of his character so I never developed the friendship beyond acquaintance — who posed this question to me:

    He said, “Michelle, there’s basically two kinds of people at every party: those who want to be interesting and those who are interested. Which one are you?”

    I was rather stunned by that question. Made me think. At the time, I honestly could see that I was more concerned about being interesting. Since then, I’ve become much more interested in people, who they are, their stories, views, dreams. It’s made all the difference in my life. Thank you Stephen for that wake up call – and thank you Elsa for sharing your story.

  17. Today! It was great. I think she is someone who has been close to me in past lives, because even when we had just met, we were finishing each other’s sentences to a surprising degree.

  18. On a separate topic, it would be cleaner if you just had a login on the opening screen, so we wouldn’t have to look around for it. And there would be no duplicative sign in.

  19. I don’t know what you are talking about it. I sign in and I am signed in all day. You must have some kind of cookie thing on your machine or your browser.

  20. If you sign on, Board side, you are automatically signed on to make comments Blog side. Not so the other way around.

    HOWEVER I don’t agree that this is a negative; you could just sign in Board side and you don’t have to do it twice.

  21. @CPG “Last month I reconnected with a dear old friend. It was like we picked up the conversation right where we’d left off without a pause or glitch.”

    I’ve got friends from 25 years ago (high school), 20 years (college), and 15 (post college). So lucky to have these LTR, but I wish one was like Ben that could give me this level of insight.

    @Michelle – Good point. I was definitely the “interesting” person at the party (Venus in Leo, anyone?), but should work at being more interested. I think I am these days.

  22. It is a minor point, Elsa, but there is no such thing as doing things too well, Kashmiri explained it. You have to sign in board side to be signed in for all purposes.

  23. Hmmn. While she’s at it, Elsa should just hurry up and cure cancer, world hunger and get that flying car invented, too, don’t you think?
    Sheesh! 😉

    [which is to say that I, for one, am more than okay with having E concentrate on her writing and consults and other content-specific interactions rather than attempt to also be a web-developer/coder in all her abundant spare time.]

  24. gemini, I have nothing to do with the tech side of this site. If we relied on my skills for this, there would be no site because I don’t have any skills.

    I am very fortunate to have help on this front. I am one person with a very large site to pay to maintain, rather than someone with some sort of corporate backing.

    Basically what I am saying is this is as good as it gets.

    I am sorry you found a glitch. It’s the first I have heard of it since this site was launched in 2005.

    I have some new reports I sell, they help support the site. I have been waiting for 5 months to make them available but we’re all so busy, it’s not gotten done. We’re on a shoestring here, basically and I hope this is your last complaint about my free (to you) site.

  25. The Ben stories are GOLD GOLD GOLD pure gold Elsa. Your writing is rich, wrapped around the history/astrology – what more could anyone want.

    Living testament!

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