Last weekend in Florida In August, I will have known them sixteen years. There was Edie, the one who was summoned from the shower by a clueless RA to meet my entire family as she dripped in our freshman dorm room, Tara, the one in the blue dress whom I met while we toured the campus with the Honors nerds (that I somehow thought we were "other than." We were not.), and Amber, the one I interviewed in my first class on the first day about, among other things, having dressed up as the mascot of her high school back in Florida.
I didn’t know when I met them that I’d still know them now, nearly half my life later, having lived in three states since then and now married the better part of a decade to someone different than we’d originally thought. I didn’t know we would slog through marriage, careers, callings and motherhood together, didn’t know I’d still know them when three of us drove minivans and one drove a station wagon. I didn't know we would live scattered in four different states, but would meet up as often as possible, for birthdays and babies and weddings, in Baltimore, Charleston, Richmond, Savannah, Tallahassee, Annapolis and Bloomington. But I did know, after that first year, that those three felt like home. Even then I had a sense that’s grown ever since that this is the kind of thing that only comes around maybe once in a lifetime. And, I know now, for many people, not at all.
I didn’t know when I met them that I’d still know them now, nearly half my life later, having lived in three states since then and now married the better part of a decade to someone different than we’d originally thought. I didn’t know we would slog through marriage, careers, callings and motherhood together, didn’t know I’d still know them when three of us drove minivans and one drove a station wagon. I didn't know we would live scattered in four different states, but would meet up as often as possible, for birthdays and babies and weddings, in Baltimore, Charleston, Richmond, Savannah, Tallahassee, Annapolis and Bloomington. But I did know, after that first year, that those three felt like home. Even then I had a sense that’s grown ever since that this is the kind of thing that only comes around maybe once in a lifetime. And, I know now, for many people, not at all.
2007, when we met up in Savannah Last Wednesday I stood in three different airports randomly smiling at my phone as I imagined the three of us moving on a map of the Eastern half of the United States. The texts came in all day “Leaving now,” from Edie in Indiana in the morning; “At the airport in Tulsa, headed to Houston,” from Amber as I sat in Norfolk waiting to board a plane to Atlanta; “Finally leaving work,” from Tara in Tallahassee as I flew. Two of us flew to Panama City Beach, cramming our things into carry-ons to avoid checking luggage while the other two packed up cars and brought coffee makers, folding chairs and everything else we would need for a long weekend at Grayton Beach.
In the living room, around a variety of tables, in the white sand, in the backseat, in bunk beds—wherever we found ourselves over the next four days—we filled in the details of our daily lives. We lamented that the people who live life beside us, in our respective current hometowns, don’t know our stories like these girls do. Our newer friends require backstory there just isn’t always time to get to. They require explanations of ourselves and our hearts because it’s just not all as reflexive as it is with people who knew you when. We wished, we said, that we knew each other’s children better. I complained that I can’t even envision these friends I’ve known so long sitting at their kitchen tables or going about their lives, as our reunions usually happen when we meet up like this, apart from our husbands and families and homes, though I’m pretty sure that fact also accounts for some of the preciousness of the time.
In the living room, around a variety of tables, in the white sand, in the backseat, in bunk beds—wherever we found ourselves over the next four days—we filled in the details of our daily lives. We lamented that the people who live life beside us, in our respective current hometowns, don’t know our stories like these girls do. Our newer friends require backstory there just isn’t always time to get to. They require explanations of ourselves and our hearts because it’s just not all as reflexive as it is with people who knew you when. We wished, we said, that we knew each other’s children better. I complained that I can’t even envision these friends I’ve known so long sitting at their kitchen tables or going about their lives, as our reunions usually happen when we meet up like this, apart from our husbands and families and homes, though I’m pretty sure that fact also accounts for some of the preciousness of the time.
2010, in Charleston for Edie's wedding We speculated about why our friendship has lasted when so many fade away. I’ve lost exponentially more friends than I’ve kept, usually to the slow fade, and often due in large part to my inability to keep in touch. To find friends who saw you then, and still see you now, despite the distractions, mistakes, distance and general busyness of life—I know now—is a gift few receive. To wander with these girls this weekend, reminiscing, of course, but also digging in about what life is now, and all the things it’s been in the last sixteen years, was a privilege. Knowing and loving these girls—and being known by them—has and continues to be an honor. What a rare and beautiful thing to continue to be loved by people who have stood with you through so many seasons, so many mistakes, and remain undeterred, unthreatened, and unsurprised as you sit on the cusp of what you were always meant to be.
2011, in Annapolis I love these girls with a fierceness reserved for few. I love them because I don’t have to measure my words when I’m with them, because they so intimately know my heart. I love them because they have saved space for me in theirs. I love them because at least one of them has crashed on couches or in my bed in nearly all the places I’ve called home. I love them because they have showed up unannounced in times of crisis, sometimes without even asking. I love them because I’ve done the same for them, without a second thought. I love them because they know me—my faults, my scars, my gifts, my mistakes—they know all of them and choose love and acceptance.
They have let me grow these last sixteen years. They have encouraged it, they have cheered it, they have welcomed it, but they have never forced it. They would have loved me even if I hadn’t grown.
The reason I can rest in the knowledge that I will always know these precious girls— no matter the miles that separate us or the time between calls— is that I believe when they look at me they still see that brash, self-righteous, leggy, sun-streaked blonde that I was when we met. The one who was so sure of so much, whose convictions were as yet untested, the one so few people in my current life ever knew. And they have loved all the versions of me I’ve been since then. The reason I can rest in their love and acceptance is because they have made it so clear that both live somewhere above the drone of daily life. And though I’ll always wish I could walk down the street and settle in at their kitchen tables for coffee, though I’ll always miss them with a sometimes physical ache, their transcendent love is one of the best things I’ve experienced in this life.
They have let me grow these last sixteen years. They have encouraged it, they have cheered it, they have welcomed it, but they have never forced it. They would have loved me even if I hadn’t grown.
The reason I can rest in the knowledge that I will always know these precious girls— no matter the miles that separate us or the time between calls— is that I believe when they look at me they still see that brash, self-righteous, leggy, sun-streaked blonde that I was when we met. The one who was so sure of so much, whose convictions were as yet untested, the one so few people in my current life ever knew. And they have loved all the versions of me I’ve been since then. The reason I can rest in their love and acceptance is because they have made it so clear that both live somewhere above the drone of daily life. And though I’ll always wish I could walk down the street and settle in at their kitchen tables for coffee, though I’ll always miss them with a sometimes physical ache, their transcendent love is one of the best things I’ve experienced in this life.
My room the morning after I returned home “What if we take pictures of our homes, just as we find them when we get there?” Tara, nearly seven months pregnant with her third child, had suggested. On Sunday as I traveled home, back through three airports, the pictures and texts started coming in. They featured clothing and toys strewn about, children sitting on kitchen counters and wandering into the frame; they were scenes captured unretouched. That’s what our friendship is—unretouched. Unedited, unfiltered, messy, raw and brilliant and real.
Sometimes it feels far away, always there is too much time between visits, but I could not be more grateful for these women who have let me into the messiness of their lives and who don’t balk at mine. They have taught me more about God and grace and love than I could ever list or repay.
"Bring me to your house, tell me, 'Sorry for the mess,'
Hey, I don't mind. You're talking in your sleep, all the time.
Well, you still make sense to me, your mess is mine..."
--Vance Joy
Sometimes it feels far away, always there is too much time between visits, but I could not be more grateful for these women who have let me into the messiness of their lives and who don’t balk at mine. They have taught me more about God and grace and love than I could ever list or repay.
"Bring me to your house, tell me, 'Sorry for the mess,'
Hey, I don't mind. You're talking in your sleep, all the time.
Well, you still make sense to me, your mess is mine..."
--Vance Joy
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