A Story and a Challenge

I interrupt this regularly scheduled Writing Boot Camp Monday to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there were two little girls.

At 3...

These little girls grew up together. They played dolls together. They played with make-up together.

At 14...

They swooned over boys and boy bands together. They stayed up all night talking about nothing and everything, solving the problems of the world as only teenage girls can.

 

At 20...

 

They survived together, both the little and big things life throws at you as you grow: horrible hair cuts. The aforementioned boy band members getting married. Break ups. The loss of parents.

The loss of each other.

Because, as often happens even in the best of friendships, there was a time when the two little girls grew apart.

Life went on. Jobs, marriages, babies--suddenly they blinked, and the two little girls were not little anymore. They were 30.

They were grown-up.

Once upon a time, they'd had a lot in common. Could they possibly still have anything in common? They decided they would find out.

After a brief, uncomfortable silence in a car, this is what they discovered.

They discovered that there is something familiar in a friend that grew up with you--even if you haven't had a real conversation in close to a decade. Because you don't have to explain your particular brand of crazy to a friend like that--she was right there with you, living it.

They discovered the old stories that used to make them laugh still make them laugh. And cry. And everything in between.

They discovered that they didn't have to live in those old stories--getting to know each other as adults was just as fun as chewing over the old times.

They discovered there were things you could say to your oldest friend that you wouldn't dare say to anyone else.

And they discovered it was just as hard to say goodbye to each other in a Cracker Barrel parking lot as it has been when they were children.

And at 30.

This particular story doesn't end. The girls, at one point, had thought maybe it had---but it turns out it was just a volume that was ending. A new book, a fresh new part of the series, was just starting.

And you all know how much I like a good book.

My challenge to you: reach out to that old friend. Everyone has someone they once loved that got lost to time--you got busy, you moved away, you grew up. But you think of them often. So let them know--pick up the phone, send a letter, send an e-mail...do anything but Facebook poke them, because no one knows what that really means.

You won't be sorry you did.