22 Years Later . . .

I believe that I have posted before that I am a low maintenance friend. I don't expect too much, too often of the friends I surround myself with, and I prefer to have friends that are low maintenance as well.

Although I try to give 100% to the people in my life, I oftentimes just don't have it in me. Life gets in the way. The people I hear about that can juggle work, home, friendships, aging parents, etc . . . with ease totally blow my mind. I have enough trouble trying to find my own socks in the morning, never mind throwing hubby, kids, parents and all my friends into the mix. So, quite frequently and unfortunately, it is the friends that end up taking the back seat.

I bring this up because I guess I have always been like this and I have throughout my life let friendships slip away because of the simple fact that I was just too busy, I'd call tomorrow or some other relatively lame excuse.

I recently joined Facebook and people who were near and dear to me (and some that were not so near and dear) have come out of the woodwork. I have found people that I often think about, people I haven't thought about in years, but were still an integral part of shaping who I am today and people that I haven't thought about in years and pretty much still don't care to think about. :) It has been an amazing ride!

Anyway, over the past month or so, 4 women who I went to high school with - 3 of which I haven't seen since our graduation day 22 years ago - have been chatting on Facebook. It started with the casual "We should get together for drinks" and slowly turned into an online argument as to why none of us had actually set anything up. Needless to say, we guilted the most social of the 5 of us to name a time and place. And she did. Amazingly, we were all available and agreed to be there.

So last night, 22 years later, we met. As far as I am concerned, they all pretty much look exactly the same - not even a day older than our graduation day. They are all such beautiful women and it was like we had never been apart. We ate, we drank, we laughed and we even cried. It was so good to see them. It made me wonder what it was that made us go our separate ways with not even so much as a glance back all those years ago. Again, I guess life just got in the way.

After5 hours of catching up and reminiscing, we parted ways. About halfway to our cars, we all seemed to turn around at the exact same moment and all blurted out the same thing. "We need to do this again. SOON!" And I knew we all meant it, and I know that we will. And I vowed to myself at that moment to Never. Ever. Let life get in the way of my friendship with these beautiful, wonderful women again. Not even for 1 year, never mind 22.