Milestones are worth celebrating. We have parties or special events to commemorate nuptials, births and years at work. What about friendship? Why not honor years of friendship with a special event or party?
I am celebrating my anniversary. I met my BFF 32 years ago and that is something to cheer about. Since then we have only lived in the same state once, when she was in her 7th year of college and I had taken a year off to work. We came close to living near each other years later - she worked for a few years on the east coast, just 5 miles from where I live now. We moved there a few months after she left the area to work in Europe. I don't know if it was via email or phone calls (there was no Facebook or Twitter!) but we managed to stay in touch.
No easy feat - our lives have taken vastly different paths. She followed a successful corporate career track and I embarked on a bumpy entrepreneurial road and then raised a family- a wildly different picture than the one we painted years before.
Maybe that's what keeps us close - our lives being so different. I can't wait to hear about her latest business challenges or ventures and she can't wait for scoop about my kids and TravelingMom website. She is godmother to my oldest but they all call her Aunt.
Nowadays, we talk. Boy do we talk. Thank goodness for free long distance. We don't talk as often as we would both like so once we get each other on the phone, we dive in - sometimes we include a little hometown gossip but we mostly tackle deep heady topics that include everything from our jobs to our changing [aging] bodies.
I have Tweeted my declaration to make 2010 the year of girlfriend getaways. This trip to Austin to celebrate my BFF is my start - I am almost 6 years overdue. On my 40th birthday, I met girlfriends in Costa Rica so I could finally learn to surf. We planned our next trip then but still haven't made the time to take it. Maybe we'll set a date this time. And I will leave the kids at home.
