I'm old enough to be my friend Ali's mom, no sweat. It wouldn't even require being a teen mother. But the two decades that stand between her age and mine don't amount to a hill of beans in our relationship. Ali is an old soul, a woman wise beyond her years. I want to be a young soul, and I've got to believe that Ali's friendship is helping me out with that.
She called me this morning to talk through a decision – whether to break her training schedule for an upcoming ultramarathon in order to take the next phase of Pilates teacher training. I was flattered that Ali valued my advice, and we spent half an hour on the phone weighing the pros and cons. At the end, she said, "Thanks, now I know what I'm going to do."
Lest you think I'm the mentor and Ali the protege, we pass the role of guru back and forth faster than a soccer ball. As my astanga teacher, Ali's my role model and guide. I'm inspired by her dedication to fitness, and my own routine has benefited from it. When I don't feel like going to the gym, I think to myself, "What would Ali do?" then sigh and reach for the car keys. If I don't know what to make of international events – a situation that is all too typical these days – Ali is my go-to person. She has been posted all over the world in the foreign service and understands global dynamics better than anyone I know. My level of knowledge is still stuck in Poly Sci 101. On the flip side, I aspire to a strong sense of personal style like Ali, who wears a cowboy hat and drives a silver Jeep Wrangler with a convertible top.
Ali and I liked each other on sight. We had that friendship chemistry thing going right away. We became buddies based on a mutual love of fitness and the outdoors, hiking, snowshoeing and bike riding together. Aha! So that's the secret of becoming a young soul – making friends based on your passions, not your life stage. I'm banking on it.
I don't want to wake up someday and discover I've walled myself in with a bunch of friends who are all my age. I don't want to become one of those insular old people who talks about the price of gas when she learned to drive (for the record, it was 30 cents a gallon) and rants about today's music being noise. No worries. That won't happen. Ali won't let it.