A reason, a season, a lifetime

On Monday, I was hunting through the garage for Genevieve's mouse costume. When we made it last year (and by "we" I mean "mostly Mom"), we purposefully made it larger so that it could be a play costume and maybemaybemaaaaybeee fit her for another Halloween.

Halloween 2012

In a bin of miscellaneous stuff (from Mom's house), I came across this photo:

Halloween 2001 (Pardon the photo of a photo)

(The blonde is ChrissyG, my best friend through high school and college. Shortly after Andrew and I got married in 2005, ChrissyG and I stopped speaking. Why? That's not the point of this story. The point is that for eight years, there was a ChrissyG-shaped hole in my heart and life.)

I was getting my shownotes together for the podcast after getting Genevieve to sleep for the night, and with my laptop right there, I thought, "I wonder how ChrissyG is doing. I'll just google her."

In three clicks, I found her Twitter stream and her Instagram profile. For two hours, I fell down a rabbit hole of catching up with her life, 140 characters and a thumbnail photo at a time.

Over eight years, I had thought about her a lot. About her kids, about how she was doing. I missed her like crazy. I had even talked about mourning the loss of our friendship with Dr. Boyband, YEARS after the fact. The loss of a friendship like ours is one that is mourned for a long time; and like with any loss, you never really get over it.

I didn't want to intrude in her life if she didn't want me in it, because hellooooo, boundaries. But I couldn't stand at *least* letting her know I was there, just in case.

When I woke up the next morning, I saw a tweet from ChrissyG to me, saying she had looked for me under my old handles from high school, but, YAY that I had found her. (I paraphrase.)

I shot her a message with my phone number, and we texted throughout the morning, until Genevieve went down for her nap. Then we talked on the phone for an hour and a half, catching up on what eight years of separation had robbed us of.

We made plans to see each other, and she came over the next day. The superficial stuff had changed, her hair, her clothes, but there she was. My best friend.

ChrissyG was always the cool one, knowledgeable, doing her own thing and not caring what other people thought. She was smart, funny, and stylish. I am pleased to report that in these respects, the important ones, she hasn't changed a bit.

When she came in, Genevieve was immediately comfortable with her. (This is a big deal.) We spent the morning together, chatting about where our friends and acquaintances have been up to, talking about our kids, and the usual stuff.

It was great. We have both grown up, mellowed, and become more of ourselves than we were before, and the best thing is this: where some folks become different people over time apart, we're like a stream that got separated in the middle by a rock and met up again on the other side.

Treasured trinkets

My mom has always said that there are different types of friends; friends for a reason, friends for a season, friends for a lifetime.

Let's never be apart again, ok, ChrissyG? I'd hate to make a liar out of the dog tag.