Once upon a time….

I was having a miserable several years in teen land (as many of us did).  In 6th grade I went from having a decent amount of friends to being tagged as the biggest nerd in the school.  The sudden shift was shocking and painful.  It was aided by braces, glasses and the world’s worst case of acne.

In essence my self esteem was in the toilet (and still suffers to this day).

Summer before my freshman year my bro and Dad went college visiting one weekend and my Mom thought it would be a great idea to take me to her friends campground.

I was less than thrilled.

I didn’t realize it would change so much.

That weekend I met Kathy.  She was pretty, confident, popular…everything I wasn’t. In that weekend, in that place it seemed like what I was back home didn’t matter.

We became fast friends.

For the next several years Kathy and I talked almost every day for about an hour and a half, and every weekend hanging out with our campground buddies.  When school started we were on the phone every day after school.  Met up on holidays, spent weekends at each others house.

It was a sorely needed friendship for me.  Probably more than she even realized.

As time often does, it moved on.  Life pulled us apart.  I moved to Indiana (the first time).  Then I moved to North Carolina, and when I moved to Virginia she went to Florida.  We lost phone numbers and contact info.  We drifted apart.

She found me 9 years ago and we managed to reconnect briefly. But it was one, maybe 2 phone calls and life got in the way again. We both had kids and husbands and jobs and were living life.

Just a couple of days ago after an exchange of a few facebook messages my phone rang.

It was Kathy.

9 years after our last conversation. 13 years after the last time we met face to face.

We talked for an hour and a half, just like old times. We talked about everything. Big and small.

Our conversation was about budgets and babysitting, home and family, jobs and mothering.  A far cry from our conversations about boys, homework and school.

Yet, it was exactly the same.

We ended the conversation in smiles, promising to do it again soon and proclaiming each how it felt like absolutely no time had passed at all. That while life had led us in different directions that core of our friendship still held on strong.  A chain as solid as steel, forged in the difficulty of teen years.

True friendship lingers even when life pulls us apart.