And Jenny

Something like 23 years ago I was a shy, introverted, terrified 9 year old.
My family had recently moved to a new town. It was a month or so before school was to start.
I was moping around the house and my mom said, "Im pretty sure a little girl your age lives next door, lets go meet her."
I'm sure I said no, but she won and we went.

I met Jenny.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. She had one entire room of her house for Barbies. She and her sister had every Barbie and every Barbie accessory and house and car you could ever get.

We sat in that room for the entire afternoon and played Barbies. And we both agree, neither of us probably said more than 2 words that afternoon.

But it was the start of one of the most important friendships of my life.

From that day on, we were inseparable. We did EVERYTHING together. Every waking, and lots of the non-waking minutes were spent together.

We ate every meal with each other, we didnt even have to ask our parents...it was assumed.

We slept at each other's houses every non-school night...and again, we didnt even ask...it was assumed.

We laughed. That was what we did. Because we were little girls. And oh boy did we have fun. I have the most wonderful memories of that time of my life.

Very innocent. Very fun. Very special.

My first heartbreak came when I had to move away from Jenny before we started Junior High.

We stayed friends through HS. Visiting each other occasionally...Jenny even went to my Senior Prom with a friend of mine.

But then we drifted apart in college. We attended each other's weddings and that was the last we saw of each other...10 years.

So then through the beauty of Facebook...we found each other this August.

And she lives just outside of Chicago...so of course we had to go see them while we were there. I called her for directions when we got close to her house, and when we heard each others' voices for the first time again, after so long, we couldn't stop laughing! It was the best laugh. Just happiness and surprise and excitement all rolled into a really genuine, good laugh.

And she is just the same, beautiful, funny, Jenny. I swear we could have talked about those days some 20 years in the past, all afternoon. It was just like yesterday. I found myself longing for that simpler time! So much as changed but it seemed that time was very important to her too, we loved catching up.
And we laughed again...it was so fun! again!