Friends

This picture always makes us groan. And on Wednesday, it will be 37 years since it was taken. Patient Husband had no clue what he was getting into when he asked to share a life with me. Thankfully, he took those vows seriously and stuck with me (I'm not the easy one.) Oh, what changes time has wrought! He's almost bald, I'm completely gray, we've both added another dimension to our bodies, he got rid of those 70's tinted glasses and we've both had a hair cut! We both wonder how time can go so fast. Oh, and we don't look like we're 12 anymore!

Today I met with Friend Laurie for a four hour marathon talk fest. Many years ago, in another life, Laurie and I worked together in a bookstore. We became friends but after we both left the bookstore our lives took their own paths and we haven't seen each other for years. Our paths would cross occasionally and we'd stand talking in a parking lot long enough for the ice cream in our carts to melt or the flowers we just bought at the garden center to droop from exhaustion.

I always thought of Laurie as my hero. I don't think I would ever have had the courage to do what she did with her life. She did the hard thing. She found herself a single mother with three little ones, worked a job, went back to school and became a high school Language Arts teacher. She's made an amazing life for herself, married a great guy and her kids are grown into good people. ( That's all we can ask of our parenthood, isn't it? That our children grow up to be nice people? I know that's all I hoped for.) Anyway, this past winter Laurie sent a comment on my blog and after many exclamation points in response and calendar checks, we made a date for this morning. We're both on spring break from school and we both had the time. It was a good, good morning. Even if she did panic a little when she thought she messed up my blog page while trying to show me how to be creative with it. As you can see, she didn't mess it up and I'm still not creative with it. SO afraid to push those buttons!