There are people who knew you before you had kids. Who you knew before they had kids. Friends who knew you when you were younger and more dramatic, if possible. Friends who brought you Wendy’s and went through storms — literal and figurative — with you. Friends who introduced you to your husband.
Sometimes those friends disappear, not out of malice; it is what it is.
But sometimes, even though the distance is far and the tweets are few and far between, a car pulls into a driveway, a family piles out and you pick up right where you left off. Just with more kids than last time.
We were so happy to spend some time with old friends today. Our best man, his wife and their two beautiful daughters stopped by for a couple of hours on a road trip. I snuggled one baby girl and watched as my boys flitted over the other. I felt that tug of the wish that they lived just a bit closer as I watched my husband and his old best friend talk while two little boys and two little girls ran around and around, or, at least sat cuddled in arms. I watched LittleBrother climb all over our friend. I watched my husband hand the older girl a frisbee. I cleaned baby puke off of my friend’s arm.
There are friends that will simply always be.
Today we laughed at how things have changed as the kids ran about and spilled water and maybe almost flirted with one another. We’re different people, that’s for certain. But there are friends for whom that difference doesn’t matter.
I know that every last one of us is thankful for every last one of them.
